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In Linguistics , a copula is a word used to link the Subject of a Sentence with a Predicate (a Subject Complement or an Adverbial ). Although it might not itself express an action or condition, it serves to equate (or associate) the subject with the predicate. The word 'copula' originates from the Latin Noun for a "link or tie" that connects two different things (for a short history of the copula see the appendix to Moro 1997 and references cited there). A copula is sometimes (though not always) a Verb or a verb-like part of speech. In English Primary Education grammar courses, a copula is often called a linking verb. The term is generally used to refer to the main copular verb in the language: in the case of English, this is "to be". It can also be used to refer to all such verbs in the language: in that case, English copulas include "to be", "to become", "to get", "to feel", and "to seem". Other verbs have secondary uses as copulative verbs, as ''fall'' in "The zebra fell victim to the lion." For a complete list see: List Of English Copulae . THE COPULA IN ENGLISH Use We can identify several sub-uses of the copula:
Non-copular uses
Note that the auxiliary verb function derives from the copular function; and, depending on one's point of view, one can still interpret the verb as a copula and the following verbal form as being adjectival. Abelard in his Dialectica made an argument against the idea that the copula can express existence based on a Reductio Ad Absurdum (Kneale - Kneale 1962 and Moro 1997). A unified theory of copular sentences
Copula deletion In informal speech, the copula may be dropped. This is a feature of African American Vernacular English but is also used by a variety of English speakers in informal contexts. Ex. "Where you at?" "We at the store." E-Prime is a variant of the English language that prohibits the use of the copula in all its forms. Conjugation As in most Indo-European Language s, the English copula is the most irregular verb, due to constant use. Most English verbs (traditionally known as " Weak Verb s") have just four separate forms, e.g. "start", "starts", "starting", "started". A large minority (traditionally known as " Strong Verb s") have five separate forms, e.g. "begin", "begins", "beginning", "began", "begun". "To be" is a very special case in having eight forms: "be", "am", "is", "are", "being", "was", "were", "been". Historically it had even more, including "art", "wast", "wert", and, occasionally, "best" as a subjunctive. Copula as subset relator From one perspective, the copula always relates two things as subsets. Take the following examples: #''John is a doctor.'' #''John and Mary are doctors.'' #''Doctors are educated.'' #''Mary is running.'' #''Running is fun.'' Example 1 includes John in the set of all doctors. Example 2 includes John and Mary both in the set of all doctors. Example 3 includes the set of doctors in the set of those who are educated. Example 4 is different. Example 4 includes Mary's State at the time of utterance in the Set Of States Consistent With Running . Example 5 then includes the set of states consistent with running in the set of states consistent with fun. Distinguishing between a Copula and an Action Verb You can generally tell between a copula and an action verb by adding the verb "to seem" or "to be" in its place. ''Example of an Action Verb'': Sam looks at lettuce. Sam '''seems''' at lettuce? Sam ""is"" at lettuce? The latter two don't make sense, so "looks" in this case is being used as an action verb. ''Example of a Copula'': Sam ""looks"" happy. Sam ""seems"" happy? Sam ""is"" happy? The latter two make sense; "looks" is used as a copula in this case. COPULAS IN OTHER LANGUAGES Languages tend to use copulas in quite different ways. Hungarian and Russian: Zero copula See Also: Zero copula In languages such as ), is known generically as the Zero Copula . Note that in other tenses (sometimes in other persons besides singular third) the copula usually reappears. In Hungarian, zero copula is restricted to present tense in 3rd person singular and plural (see examples above): "Ő ember/Ők emberek — "s/he is a human"/"they are humans"; but: "(én) ember vagyok" — "I am a human", "(te) ember vagy" — "you are a human", "(mi) emberek vagyunk" — "we are humans", "(ti) emberek vagytok" — "you (all) are humans". It also reappears for stating locations: "az emberek a házban vannak" — "the people are in the house". Hungarian uses a copula to say "Bob is here" (and this not only with regard to third person singular/plural) (''Itt van Róbert''), but not to say "Bob is old" (''Róbert öreg''). This is to relate a subject to a more temporary condition/state taking place in ''space'' (very often in the sense of Lojban ''zvati'' — "la rabyrt. zvati ne'i le zdani" (Robert is in the house)). In Russian, the verb "быть" (''byt’'') is the infinitive of "to be". The third person singular, "есть" (''yest’'') means "is" (and, interestingly enough, it is a homophone of the infinitive "to eat"). As a copula, it can be inflected into the past ("был", ''byl''), future ("будет", ''budet''), and subjunctive ("был" or "бы", ''byl'' or ''by'') forms. A present tense ("есть", ''yest’'') exists; however, it is almost never used as a copula, but rather omitted altogether or replaced by the verb "являться" (''yavlyat'sa'') (to be in essence). Thus one can say:
But not (except for archaic effect):
The third person plural "суть" (''sut’'') ("are") is still used in some standard phrases (but since it is a homonym of the noun "essence", most native speakers do not notice it to be a verb):
Turkish See Also: Turkish copula Unlike Indo-European languages, being an extremely regular Agglutinative Language , Turkish forms its "being" not as a regular verb, rather as an auxiliary verb denoted as "i-mek" which shows its existence only through suffixes to predicates which can be nouns, adjectives or arguably conjugated verb stems. In the third person singular, just like in Hungarian or Russian, Zero Copula is the rule. For example:
Chinese In Chinese languages, both states and qualities are generally expressed with Stative Verb s with no need for a copula, e.g. in Mandarin, "to be tired" (累 ''lèi''), "to be hungry" (饿 ''è''), "to be located at" (在 ''zài''), "to be stupid" (笨 ''bèn'') and so forth. These verbs are usually preceded by an adverb such as 很 ''hěn'' ("very") or 不 ''bù'' ("not"). Only sentences with a noun as the complement (e.g. "this is my sister") use the verb "to be": 是 ''shì''. This is used frequently: for example, instead of having a verb meaning "to be Chinese", the usual expression is "to be a Chinese person", using 是 ''shì''. Other sentences use adjectives plus the nominaliser 的 ''de'', e.g. 这是红的 ''zhè shì hóng de'' "this is red [one ". The history of the Chinese copula 是 is a controversial subject. Before the , 是 means "straight"; in modern Chinese, 是 means "yes" as an interjection, and "correct", "right" as an adjective, implying a sense of judgement. N.B. The characters used are Simplified ones, and the transcriptions given in italics reflect Standard Mandarin pronunciation, using the Pinyin system. Indo-European languages See Also: Indo-European copula
A feature of most Romance Language s is the coexistence of two different verbs meaning "to be", the main one from the Latin ''sum'', and a secondary one from ''sto'' (see Romance Copula ). The difference is that the former usually refers to essential characteristics, whilst the latter refers to states and situations, e. g. "Bob is old" versus "Bob is well". (Note that the English words just used, "essential" and "state", are also cognate with the Latin roots ''esse'' and ''stare''.) In some cases, the verb itself changes the meaning of the adjective/sentence. The following examples are from Portuguese : In Spanish, the quite high degree of verbal Inflection , plus the existence of two copulae (''ser'' and ''estar''), means that there are 105 separate forms to express the eight in English, and the one in Chinese. In certain languages there are not only two copulae but the Syntax is also changed when one is distinguishing between states or situation and essential characteristics. For example, in Irish , describing the subject's state or situation typically uses the normal VSO ordering with the verb ''bí''. The copula ''is'', which is used to state essential characteristics or equivalences, requires a change in word order so that the subject does not immediately follow the copula (see Irish Syntax ). In Slavic Language s, a similar distinction is made by putting a state in the Instrumental Case , while characteristics are in the Nominative . This is used with all the copulas (e.g. "become" is normally used with the instrumental). It also allows the distinction to be made when the copula is omitted (zero copula) in East Slavic languages (in other Slavic languages the copula is not omitted). Haitian Creole , no word at all, (whose position we will indicate with a placeholder "_", just for purposes of illustration). Although no textual record exists of Haitian at its earliest stages of development from French, ''se'' is obviously derived from French ''c'est'' ( IPA {Link without Title} ), which is the normal French contraction of ''ce'' (that) and the copula ''est'' (third-person singular of the present indicative of the verb ''être'', ultimately from SVM). The derivation of ''ye'' is less obvious; but we can assume that the French source was ''il est'' ("he/it is"), which, in rapidly spoken French, is very commonly pronounced as ''y est'' (IPA {Link without Title} ). The use of a zero copula is unknown in French, and it is thought to be an innovation from the early days when Haitian was first developing as a Romance-based Pidgin . Coincidentally, Latin also sometimes used a zero copula. There appears to be no trace of STO. Distinction between ''se'', ''ye'' and zero copula Which of ''se''/''ye''/_ is used in any given copula clause depends on complex syntactic factors that we can superficially summarize in these four rules: First: Use _ (i.e., no word at all) in declarative sentences where the complement is an adjective phrase, prepositional phrase, or adverb phrase:
Second: Use ''se'' when the complement is a noun phrase. But note that whereas other verbs come ''after'' any tense/mood/aspect particles (like ''pa'' to mark negation, or ''te'' to explicitly mark past tense, or ''ap'' to mark progressive aspect), ''se'' comes ''before'' any such particles:
Third: Use ''se'' where English or French have a Dummy "it" subject:
And finally: use the other copula form, ''ye'', in situations where the sentence's syntax leaves the copula at the end of a phrase:
The above is, however, only a superficial analysis. For more details on the syntactic conditions as well as on Haitian-specific copula constructions such as ''se kouri m ap kouri'' (It's run I ''progressive'' run; "I'm really running!"), see the grammar sketch in Catherine Howe's ''Haitian Creole Newspaper Reader'' (which is the source for most of the Haitian data in this article), and see also Valdman & Philippe's textbook ''Ann Pale Kreyol: An Introductory Course in Haitian Creole''. Georgian and German Just like in English, the verb "to be" (''qopna'') is irregular in Georgian ; different verb roots are employed in different tenses. The roots -''ar''-, -''kn''-, -''qav''-, and -''qop''- (past participle) are used in the present tense, future tense, past tense and the perfective tenses respectively. Examples: Masc'avlebeli var Masc'avlebeli viknebi Masc'avlebeli viqavi Masc'avlebeli vqopilv Masc'avlebeli vqopili Note that in the last two examples (perfect and pluperfect) two roots are used in one verb compound. In the perfective tense, the root ''qop'' (which is the expected root for the perfective tense) is followed by the root ''ar'', which is the root for the present tense. In the pluperfective tense, again, the root ''qop'' is followed by the past tense root ''qav''. This formation is very similar to German. In German, the perfective and the pluperfective are expressed in this way: Ich bin Lehrer Ich war Lehrer Here, ''gewesen'' is the past participle of ''sein'' ("to be") in German. In both examples, just like in Georgian, this participle is used together with the present and the past forms of the verb in order to conjugate for the perfect and the pluperfect tenses. Siouan languages In Siouan languages like Lakota , in principle almost all words—according to their structure—are verbs. So, not very unlike in Lojban (see below), not only (transitive, intransitive and so-called 'stative') verbs but even nouns often behave like verbs and do not need to have copulas. For example, the word ''wicasa'' refers to a man, and the verb "to-be-a-man" is expressed as ''wimacasa/winicasa/he wicasa'' (I am/you are/he is a man). Yet there also is a copula ''heca'' [he'cha (to be a ...) that in most cases is used: ''wicasa hemaca/henica/heca'' (I am/you are/he is a man). In order to express the statement "I am a doctor of profession," one has to say ''pezuta wicasa hemaca'' wicha's^a hema'cha . But in order to express that that person is THE doctor (say, that had been phoned to help), one would have to use another copula ''(i)ye'' (to be the one): ''pezuta wicasa (kin) miye lo'' (medicine-man DEF ART I-am-the-one MALE ASSERT). In order to refer to space (e.g. Robert is in the house), various verbs are used as copula, e.g. ''yankA'' (lit.: to sit) for humans, or ''han/he'' [haN'/he' (to stand upright) for inanimate objects of a certain shape. "Robert is in the house" could be translated as ''Robert timahel yanke (yelo)'', whereas "there's one restaurant next to the gas station" translates as "owotetipi wigli-oinazin kin hel isakib wanzi he". Japanese Japanese has copulas which would most often be translated as one of the so-called be-verbs of English. The Japanese copula has many forms. The words ''da'' and ''desu'' are used to Predicate sentences, while ''na'' and ''de'' are used within sentences to modify or connect. Japanese sentences with copulas most often equate one thing with another, that is, they are of the form "A is B." Examples:
The difference between ''da'' and ''desu'' is simple: ''desu'' is More Formal And Polite than ''da''. Thus, the two sentences below are identical in meaning and differ only in the speaker's politeness to the Addressee .
Japanese sentences may be predicated with copulas or with verbs. However, ''desu'' may not always be a predicate. In some cases, its only function is to make a sentence predicated with a Stative Verb more polite. However, ''da'' always functions as a predicate, so it cannot be combined with a stative verb, because sentences need only one predicate. See the examples below.
Japanese also has two verbs corresponding to English "to be": ''aru'' and ''iru''. They are not copulae but existential verbs. ''Aru'' is used for inanimate objects, including plants, while ''iru'' is used for people and animals, though there are exceptions to this generalization.
There are several theories as to the origin of ''desu''; one is that it is a shortened form of であります (de arimasu), used sometimes in writing and more formal situations. Another form, でございます (de gozaimasu which is the formal version of であります or である), is also used in some situations and is very polite. です "desu" may be pronounced っす "ssu" in colloquial speech. The copula is subject to dialectal variation throughout Japan, resulting in forms such as ''ya'' (in Kansai ) and ''ja'' (in Hiroshima ). Constructed languages The Constructed Language Lojban has copulae, but they are rarely used, and are sometimes viewed with distaste in the Lojban community, because all words that express a predicate can be used as verbs. The three sentences "Bob runs", "Bob is old", and "Bob is a fireman", for instance, would all have the same form in Lojban: ''la bob. bajra'', ''la bob. tolcitno'', and ''la bob. fagdirpre''. There are several different copulae: ''me'' turns whatever follows the word ''me'' into a verb that means ''to be'' what it follows. For example, ''me la bob.'' means ''to be Bob.'' Another copula is ''du'', which is a verb that means all its arguments are the same thing (equal). Lojban For Beginners The E-Prime language, based on English, simply avoids the issue by not having a generic copula. It requires instead a specific form such as "remains", "becomes", "lies", or "equals". Esperanto uses the copula much as in English. The infinitive is ''esti'', and the whole conjugation is regular (as with all Esperanto verbs). Additionally, adjectival roots can be turned into stative verbs: ''La ĉielo bluas.'' "The sky is blue." Similarly, Ido has a copula that works as English "to be". Its infinitive is ''esar'', and, as is the case in Esperanto, all of its forms are regular: the simple present is ''esas'' for all persons; the simple past is ''esis'', the simple future is ''esos'', and the imperative is ''esez'', among a few more forms. However, Ido also has an alternative irregular form for the simple present ("es"), which some Idists frown upon. The possibility to turn adjectives and even nouns into verbs also exist, although this is mostly done by means of an affix, on top of the verbal endings. The affix is "-es-". So, "The sky is blue." can be said as "La cielo bluesas". As can be seen, the suffix "-es-" plus the verbal desinence "-as" are simply the verb "to be" annexed to the adjectival or nominal root. Interlingua speakers use copulae with the same freedom as speakers of Slavic, Germanic, and Romance languages. In addition to combinations with ''esser'' ('to be'), expressions such as ''cader prede'' ('to fall prey') are common. ''Esser'' is stated, rather than omitted as in Russian. EXISTENTIAL USAGE The existential usage of "to be" is distinct from and yet, in some languages, intimately related to its copulative usage. In language as opposed to formal logic, existence is a predicate rather than a quantifier, and the passage from copulative to existential usage can be subtle. In modern linguistics one commonly speaks of existential constructions - prototypically involving an Expletive like ''there'' - rather than existential use of the verb itself. So for example in English a sentence like "there is a problem" would be considered an instance of existential construction. Relying on unified theory of copular sentences, it has been proposed that ''there''-sentences are subtypes of inverse copular sentences (see Moro 1997 and "existential sentences and expletive ''there''" in Everaert et al. 2006 for a detailed discussion of this issue and a historical survery of the major proposals). For example:
Other languages prefer to keep the existential usage entirely separate from the copula. Swedish, for example, reserves ''vara'' (to be) for the copula, keeping ''bli'' (to become) and ''finnas'' (to exist) for becoming and existing, respectively.
In and Existence . NOTES REFERENCES
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