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> > OK, after looking at it I don't have much more to say. According to the book > the picture is too blurred to give a secure answer. To get to |estre| (the Old > French form), you have to suppose a form *ESSRE instead of *ESSERE, something > not impossible but intriguing. That's the development I suggested (see my previous postings). The form ESSRE (<'ESSERE) is not so unlikely: think about battre, vivre, prendre: the final -re is a contraction of VL unstressed -ERE. The _t_ in the root of French e^tre is probably an intrusion: the cluster /sr/ was (and is) not allowed, the consonant _t_ plays the same role _b_ plays in chambre from CAMRA<CAMERA. > Moreover, the participles |estant| and |esté| > cannot even be surely said to come from STARE. They could very well be a > creation from the new infinitive |estre|. So basically without a time machine > we'll never know :)) . Beware Italian has _essere_ as infinitive, but _stato_ and _stante_ as participles (_ente_ exists, but it's a learned word used in philosophy to translate Latin _ens_ or Greek _o:n_). Lombard _vess_ but _staa_; Ligurian _esse_ but _stæto_ [stE:tu]. Luca