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Zero copula, also known asnull copula, is a linguistic phenomenon whereby the subject is joined to the predicate without overt marking of this relationship (like thecopulato be in English). One can distinguish languages that simply do not have a copula and languages that have a copula that is optional in certain contexts.
Dropping the copula is also found, to a lesser extent, inEnglish and many other languages, used most frequently inrhetoric, casual speech, non-standard varieties, andheadlinese, the writing style used in newspaperheadlines. Sometimes, these omissions cause unintendedsyntactic ambiguity.
Standard English exhibits a few limited forms of the zero copula. One is found incomparative correlatives like "the bigger, the better" and "the more the merrier". However, no known natural language lacks this structure, and it is not clear how a comparative is joined with its correlate in this kind of copula.[1] Zero copula also appears in casual questions and statements like "you from out of town?" and "enough already!" where the verb (and more) may be omitted due tosyncope. It can also be found, in a slightly different and more regular form, in theheadlines of Englishnewspapers, where short words andarticles are generally omitted to conserve space. For example, a headline would more likely say "Parliament at a standstill" than "Parliamentis at a standstill". Because headlines are generally simple, in "A is B" statements, an explicit copula is rarely necessary.
Zero copulae are very common in sports announcing. For example: "Johnson already with two hits today." "Unitas with a lot of time."
The zero copula is far more common in some varieties of Caribbean creoles andAfrican American Vernacular English,[2] where phrases like "Where you at?" and "Who she?" can occur.[3] As in Russian and Arabic, where the copula can only be omitted in the present tense, the copula can only be omitted in African American Vernacular English when it can becontracted in StandardAmerican English.
Omission frequently depends on thetense and use of the copula.
InBengali (Bangla) zero copula is usually found in thepresent tense when describing the state or adjectival properties of a subject, when alongside a prepositional phrase, or with theadverb 'here' or 'there'. For example, in the sentence,
the copulaআছি (aachhi, "are/exist", first person conjugation) is omitted, and in
the possessive noun phrase and the name are always placed together.
InRussian the copulaбы́ть (byt’) is normally omitted in thepresent tense, but not in thepast andfuture tenses:
Present (omitted):
Past (used):
The third person pluralсу́ть (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:
The verbбы́ть (byt’) is the infinitive of "to be". The third person singular,есть (yest’), means "is". As a copula, it can be inflected into the past (бы́л,byl), "future" (бу́дет,budet), and conditional (бы́л бы,byl 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 verbявля́ться (yavlyat'sa, "to be in essence"). Thus one can say:
But not usually:
But in some cases the verbбы́ть in the present tense (formесть) is employed:Бу́дь тем, кто ты есть (Be who you are).
The present tense of the copula in Russian was in common use well into the 19th century (as attested in the works ofFyodor Dostoyevsky) but is now used only forarchaic effect (analogous to "thou art" in English).
There is a contrast between the regular verb "to be" (olmak) and the copulative/auxiliary verb "to be" (imek) inTurkish.
The auxiliary verbimek shows its existence only through suffixes to predicates that can be nouns, adjectives or arguably conjugated verb stems, arguably being the onlyirregular verb in Turkish. In the third person, zero copula is the rule, as in Hungarian or Russian. For example:
| Deniz mavi. | "[The] sea [is] blue." | (the auxiliary verbi-mek is implied only); |
| Ben maviyim. | "I am blue." | (the auxiliary verbi-mek appears in(y)im.) |
Theessential copula is possible in the third person singular:[citation needed]
| Deniz mavidir. | "[The] sea is (always, characteristically) blue." |
InTatar,dir expresses doubt rather than a characteristic. The origin ofdir is the verbdurmak, with a similar meaning to the Latinstare.
In the modern Tatar language copula is a disappearing grammatical phenomenon and is only rarely used with the first and second person (while the third person copula has fallen completely out of use).[4] In the past there was a full paradigm for all persons:
| Singular | Plural | |
| I person | -мын/-мен | -быз/-без |
| II person | -сың/-сең | -сыз/-сез |
| III person | -дыр/-дер (-тыр/тер) | -дыр/-дер (-тыр/тер) |
For example:Мин укытучымын (Min ukıtuçımın, "I'm a teacher"),Син укытучысың (Sin ukıtuçısıñ, "You're a teacher"),Ул укытучыдыр (Ul ukıtuçıdır, "He/She's a teacher"). While the copulas for the first and second person are historically derived from personal pronouns, the third person copula comes from the verbтор (tor, "stand, live, exist"). For negation the copula affix is attached to the negative particleтүгел (tügel):Мин язучы түгелмен (Min yazuçı tügelmen, "I'm not a writer"). The copula is only used with nouns. Sometimes the noun can be in the locative case:Сез өйдәсез (Sez öydäsez, "You are at home").
InJapanese, the copula is not used with predicative adjectives, such asgohan wa atsui(desu) (ご飯は熱い（です）; [the] food [is] hot). It is sometimes omitted with predicative nouns and adjectival nouns in non-past tense, such askeitai-denwa wa benri (携帯電話は便利[だ]（です）; mobile phones [are] convenient), but is necessary for marking past tense or negation, as inii keiken datta(ii keiken deshita) (いい経験だった（いい経験でした）; [it] was [a] good experience). It is also sometimes omitted in wh-questions, such asnani kore? (Kore wa nan desuka?) (何これ？（これは何ですか？）; what [is] this?).
InMāori, the zero copula can be used in predicative expressions and with continuous verbs (many of which take a copulative verb in many Indo-European languages) —He nui te whare, literally "a big the house", "the house (is) big";I te tēpu te pukapuka, literally "at (past locative particle) the table the book", "the book (was) on the table";Nō Ingarangi ia, literally "from England (s)he", "(s)he (is) from England";Kei te kai au, literally "at the (act of) eating I", "I (am) eating"
InArabic, aSemitic language, the use of the zero copula again depends on the context. In the present tense affirmative, when the subject isdefinite and the predicate isindefinite, the subject is simply juxtaposed with its predicate. When both the subject and the predicate aredefinite, apronoun (agreeing with the subject) may be inserted between the two. For example:
The extra pronoun is highly recommended in order for one not to confuse the predicate for a qualifying adjective:
(This is just anoun phrase with no copula. Seeal- for more on the use of definite and indefinite nouns in Arabic and how it affects the copula.)
In the past tense, however, or in the present tense negative, the verbskāna andlaysa are used, which take theaccusative case:
When the copula is expressed with a verb, no pronoun need be inserted, regardless of the definiteness of the predicate:
Hebrew, anotherSemitic language, uses zero copula in a very similar way.
TheGanda verb "to be",-li, is used in only two cases: when the predicate is a prepositional phrase and when the subject is a pronoun and the predicate is an adjective:
Otherwise, the zero copula is used:
Here the wordmulungi, "beautiful" is missing its initial vowel pre-prefixo-. If included, it would make the adjective qualify the nounomuwalaattributively:
American Sign Language does not have a copula. For example, "my hair is wet" is signedmy hair wet, and "my name is Pete" may be signed[MY NAME]topic P-E-T-E.
The copulais is used in Irish but may be omitted in the present tense. For example,Is fear mór é ("He is a big man") can be expressed as simplyFear mór é. The common phrasePé scéal é (meaning "anyhow", lit. "Whatever story it [is]") also omits the copula.
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The fact thatWelsh often requires the use of a predicative particle to denote non-definite predicates means that the copula can be omitted in certain phrases. For example, the phraseAc yntau'n ddyn byr... ("Since he is/was/etc. a short man...") literally translates as "And he [particle] a short man...". The zero copula is especially common in Welsh poetry of thegogynfardd style.
Nahuatl, as well as some otherAmerindian languages, has no copula. Instead of using a copula, it is possible toconjugate nouns or adjectives like verbs.
Grammarians and other comparative linguists, however,do not consider this to constitute a zero copula but rather anaffixal copula. Affixal copulae are not unique to Amerindian languages but can be found, for instance, inKorean and in theEskimo languages.
Many indigenous languages of South America do, however, have true zero copulae in which no overt freeor boundmorpheme is present when one noun is equated with another. In fact, zero-copula is likely to occur in third-person contexts in Southern Quechua (noticewasiqa hatunmi 'the house is big' vs.wasiqa hatunmi kan 'the house is big', wherekan, the Quechua copula, is not really needed, as suggested by the first sentence).
Yaghan, from Tierra del Fuego, used, in its heyday back in the mid-19th century, zero copula as one option, when introducing new participants in discourse, but had a slew of posture-based copular verbs for all other contexts. So I could say, kvnji-u:a Jon (lit. 'this man IS John'(zero copula). kvnji 'this', u:a 'man' (v here is schwa, and colon marks tenseness of the vowel preceding it), but once John has been introduced I might say, Jon lvpatvx-wvshta:gu:a mu:ta 'John is a woodworker', lvpatvx 'wood' (x voiceless velar fricative), wvshta:gu: 'work' u:a 'man', mu:ta irregular present tense form of mu:tu: 'to be (sitting) (or occupied doing)'
Modern Standard Chinese, as well as many otherChinese dialects, uses a copula, such as the Mandarin wordshì (是), before nouns in predications, like inWŏshì Zhōngguó rén (我是中国人 / Iam Chinese), but not usually before verbs or adjectives. For example, sayingWǒshì kāixīn (我是开心 / Iam happy) is a grammatically incorrect sentence, but sayingWǒ kāixīn (我开心 / I happy), is correct. Adverbs can be added to the adjective, like inWǒhĕn kāixīn (我很开心 / Ivery happy). A copula may be used for adjectives, however, if the particlede (的) is added after the adjective, like inWǒshì kāixīnde (我是开心的).
Somewhat similar to Chinese, theVietnamese language requires the copulalà before nouns inpredications but does not use a copula before verbs or adjectives, thusTôilà sinh viên (I am a student) butTôi giỏi (I [am] smart). The topic markerthì may appear before an adjective to emphasize the subject, for exampleTôithì giỏi (As for me, I am smart). Many prepositions in Vietnamese originated as verbs and continue to function as verbs in sentences that would use a copula in English. For example, inTôiở nhà (I am at home), the wordở may be analyzed as either "to be at" or simply "at". Sometimes, attributive adjectives may follow the verbcó (to have), thusTôi(có) cao is a feasible sentence.
Definition: The absence of an explicit auxiliary verb (usually a form of the verb be) in certain constructions where it is customarily found in standard English. Also called copula deletion. In their book Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English (Wiley, 2000), John R. Rickford and Russell J. Rickford note that the zero copula is one of the most "distinctive and identity-affirming" characteristics ofAfrican-American Vernacular English (AAVE).
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