Inlinguistics, acopula (/ˈkɒpjələ/;pl.:copulas orcopulae;abbreviatedcop) is a word or phrase that links thesubject of asentence to asubject complement, such as the word "is" in the sentence "The sky is blue" or the phrasewas not being in the sentence "It was not being cooperative." The wordcopula derives from theLatin noun for a "link" or "tie" that connects two different things.[1][2]
A copula is often averb or a verb-like word, though this is not universally the case.[3] A verb that is a copula is sometimes called acopulative orcopular verb. In Englishprimary educationgrammar courses, a copula is often called alinking verb. In other languages, copulas show more resemblances topronouns, as inClassical Chinese andGuarani, or may take the form ofsuffixes attached to a noun, as inKorean,Beja, andInuit languages.
Most languages have one main copula (in English, the verb "to be"), although some (such asSpanish,Portuguese andThai) have more than one, while others havenone. While the termcopula is generally used to refer to such principal verbs, it may also be used for a wider group of verbs with similar potential functions (such asbecome,get,feel andseem in English); alternatively, these might be distinguished as "semi-copulas" or "pseudo-copulas".
The principal use of a copula is to link thesubject of aclause to asubject complement. A copular verb is often considered to be part of thepredicate, the remainder being called apredicative expression. A simple clause containing a copula is illustrated below:
The bookis on the table.
In that sentence, thenoun phrasethe book is the subject, the verbis serves as the copula, and theprepositional phraseon the table is the predicative expression. In some theories of grammar, the whole expressionis on the table may be called a predicate or averb phrase.
The predicative expression accompanying the copula, also known as thecomplement of the copula, may take any of several possible forms: it may be a noun or noun phrase, anadjective or adjective phrase, a prepositional phrase (as above), or an adverb or another adverbial phrase expressing time or location. Examples are given below, with the copula in bold and the predicative expression in italics:
Mary and Johnaremy friends.
The skywasblue.
Iamtaller than most people.
The birds and the beastswerethere.
The three components (subject, copula and predicative expression) do not necessarily appear in that order: their positioning depends on the rules forword order applicable to the language in question. In English (anSVO language), the ordering given above is the normal one, but certain variation is possible:
It is also possible, in certain circumstances, for one (or even two) of the three components to be absent:
Inverse copular constructions, in which the positions of the predicative expression and the subject are reversed, are found in various languages.[4] They have been the subject of much theoretical analysis, particularly in regard to the difficulty of maintaining, in the case of such sentences, the usual division into a subjectnoun phrase and a predicateverb phrase.
Another issue isverb agreement when both subject and predicative expression are noun phrases (and differ in number or person): in English, the copula typically agrees with the syntactical subject even if it is not logically (i.e.semantically) the subject, as inthe cause of the riotis (notare)these pictures of the wall. Compare Italianla causa della rivoltasono queste foto del muro; notice the use of the pluralsono to agree with pluralqueste foto'these photos' rather than with singularla causa'the cause'. In instances where an English syntactical subject comprises a prepositional object that is pluralized, however, the prepositional object agrees with the predicative expression, e.g. "What kindof birds are those?"
The definition and scope of the concept of a copula is not necessarily precise in any language. As noted above, though the concept of the copula in English is most strongly associated with the verbto be, there are many other verbs that can be used in a copular sense as well.[5][6]
A copular verb may also have other uses supplementary to or distinct from its uses as a copula. Some co-occurrences are common.
The English verbto be is also used as anauxiliary verb, especially for expressingpassive voice (together with thepast participle) or expressingprogressive aspect (together with thepresent participle):
The manwas killed. (passive)
Itis raining. (progressive)
Other languages' copulas have additional uses as auxiliaries. For example, Frenchêtre can be used to express passive voice similarly to Englishbe; both Frenchêtre and Germansein are used to express theperfect forms of certain verbs:
Jesuis allé(e) French for'I went' and'I have gone', literally'I am gone', but does not imply still being gone.
In the same way, usage of Englishbe in the present perfect, though archaic, is still commonly seen in old texts/translations:
Iam become death.
Heis risen.
The auxiliary functions of these verbs derived from their copular function, and could be interpreted as special cases of the copular function (with the verbal forms it precedes being considered adjectival).
Another auxiliary usage in English is to denote an obligatory action or expected occurrence: "I am to serve you". "The manager is to resign". This can be put also into past tense: "We were to leave at 9". For forms such as "if I was/were to come", seeEnglish conditional sentences. (By certain criteria, the English copulabe may always be considered an auxiliary verb; seeDiagnostics for identifying auxiliary verbs in English.)
The Englishto be and its equivalents in certain other languages also have a non-copular use as an existential verb, meaning "to exist". This use is illustrated in the following sentences:I want onlyto be, and that is enough;I think therefore Iam;To be or notto be, that is the question. In these cases, the verb itself expresses a predicate (that ofexistence), rather than linking to a predicative expression as it does when used as a copula. Inontology it is sometimes suggested that the "is" of existence is reducible to the "is" of property attribution or class membership; to be,Aristotle held, is to besomething. However,Abelard in hisDialectica made areductio ad absurdum argument against the idea that the copula can express existence.[7]
Similar examples can be found in many other languages; for example, the French and Latin equivalents ofI think therefore I am areJe pense, donc jesuis andCogito ergosum, wheresuis andsum are the equivalents of English "am", normally used as copulas. However, other languages prefer a different verb for existential use, as in the Spanish versionPienso, luegoexisto (where the verbexistir'to exist' is used rather than the copulaser orestar'to be').
Another type of existential usage is in clauses of thethere is... orthere are... type. Languages differ in the way they express such meanings; some of them use the copular verb, possibly with anexpletive pronoun such as the Englishthere, while other languages use different verbs and constructions, such as the Frenchil y a (which uses parts of the verbavoir'to have', not the copula) or the Swedishfinns (the passive voice of the verb for "to find"). For details, seeexistential clause.
Relying on a unified theory of copular sentences, it has been proposed that the Englishthere-sentences are subtypes ofinverse copular constructions.[8]
Predicates formed using a copula may express identity: asserting that two noun phrases (subject and complement) have the samereferent or express an identical concept:
I want onlyto be myself.
The Morning Staris the Evening Star.
They may also express membership of a class or asubset relationship:
Shewas a nurse.
Catsare carnivorous mammals.
Similarly they may express some property, relation or position, permanent or temporary:
The treesare green.
Iam your boss.
The henis next to the cockerel.
The childrenare confused.
The use of copulas, especially in some of their functions, can evoke opposition.E-Prime eschews excessive copula-usage in the interests of (for example) clarity.[9][10]Deleuze and Guattari object to some implications of the verb "to be":
The tree imposes the verb 'to be,' but the fabric of the rhizome is the conjunction, 'and... and... and...' This conjunction carries enough force to shake and uproot the verb 'to be.' Where are you going? Where are you coming from? What are you heading for? These are totally useless questions. Making a clean slate, starting or beginning again from ground zero, seeking a beginning or a foundation — all imply a false conception of voyage and movement (a conception that is methodical, pedagogical, initiatory, symbolic...).[11]
Some languages use different copulas, or different syntax, to denote a permanent, essential characteristic of something versus a temporary state. For examples, see the sections on theRomance languages,Slavic languages andIrish.
In many languages the principal copula is averb, such as English(to) be, Germansein,Mixteckuu,[12]Touaregemous,[13] etc. It may inflect forgrammatical categories such astense,aspect andmood, like other verbs in the language. Being a very commonly used verb, it is likely that the copula hasirregular inflected forms; in English, the verbbe has a number of highly irregular (suppletive) forms and has more different inflected forms than any other English verb (am,is,are,was,were, etc.; seeEnglish verbs for details).
Other copulas show more resemblances topronouns. That is the case forClassical Chinese andGuarani, for instance. In highlysynthetic languages, copulas are oftensuffixes, attached to a noun, but they may still behave otherwise like ordinary verbs:-u- inInuit languages.
In some other languages, such asBeja andKet, the copula takes the form of suffixes that attach to a noun but are distinct from theperson agreement markers used onpredicative verbs.[13] This phenomenon is known asnonverbal person agreement (ornonverbal subject agreement), and the relevant markers are always established as deriving fromcliticized independent pronouns.
In some languages, copula omission occurs within a particular grammatical context. For example, speakers ofBengali,Russian,Indonesian,Turkish,Hungarian,Arabic,Hebrew,Geʽez andQuechuan languages consistently drop the copula in present tense: Bengali:আমি মানুষ, Aami manush, 'I (am a) human'; Russian:я человек,ya chelovek'I (am a) human'; Indonesian:saya seorang manusia'I (am) a human'; Turkish:o insan's/he (is a) human'; Hungarian:ő ember's/he (is) a human'; Arabic:أنا إنسان,ʾana ʾinsān'I (am a) human'; Hebrew:אני אדם,ʔani ʔadam'I (am a) human'; Geʽez:አነ ብእሲ/ብእሲ አነ,ʔana bəʔəsi /bəʔəsi ʔana'I (am a) man' /'(a) man I (am)';Southern Quechua:payqa runam's/he (is) a human'. The usage is known generically as the zero copula. In other tenses (sometimes in forms other than third person singular), the copula usually reappears.
Some languages drop the copula in poetic oraphoristic contexts. Examples in English include
Such poetic copula dropping is more pronounced in some languages other than English, such as theRomance languages.
In informal speech of English, the copula may also be dropped in general sentences, as in "She a nurse" or "They not like us." It is a feature ofAfrican-American Vernacular English, but is also used by a variety of other English speakers. An example is the sentence "I saw twelve men, each a soldier."[14]
In Ancient Greek, when an adjective precedes a noun with an article, the copula is understood:ὁ οἴκος ἐστὶ μακρός, "the house is large", can be writtenμακρός ὁ οἴκος, "large the house (is)."[citation needed]
In Quechua (Southern Quechua used for the examples), zero copula is restricted to present tense in third person singular (kan):Payqa runam'(s)he is a human'; but:(paykuna) runakunam kanku'(they) are human'.[citation needed]
InMāori, the zero copula can be used inpredicative 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 (pastlocative 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'.[15][16]
Alternatively, in many cases, the particleko can be used as a copulative (though not all instances ofko are used as thus, like all other Māori particles,ko has multiple purposes):Ko nui te whare'The house is big';Ko te pukapuka kei te tēpu'It is the book (that is) on the table';Ko au kei te kai'It is me eating'.
However, when expressing identity or class membership,ko must be used:Ko tēnei tāku pukapuka'This is my book';Ko Ōtautahi he tāone i Te Waipounamu'Christchurch is a city in the South Island (of New Zealand)';Ko koe tōku hoa'You are my friend'.
When expressing identity,ko can be placed on either object in the clause without changing the meaning (ko tēnei tāku pukapuka is the same asko tāku pukapuka tēnei) but not on both (ko tēnei ko tāku pukapuka would be equivalent to saying "it is this, it is my book" in English).[17]
In Hungarian, zero copula is restricted to present tense in third person singular and plural: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'. The copula also reappears for stating locations:az emberek a házban vannak'the people are in the house', and for stating time:hat óra van'it is six o'clock'. However, the copula may be omitted in colloquial language:hat óra (van)'it is six o'clock'.
Hungarian uses copulalenni for expressing location:Itt van Róbert'Bob is here', but it is omitted in the third person present tense for attribution or identity statements:Róbert öreg'Bob is old';ők éhesek'they are hungry';Kati nyelvtudós'Cathy is a linguist' (butRóbert öreg volt'Bob was old',éhesek voltak'they were hungry',Kati nyelvtudós volt'Cathy was a linguist').
In Turkish, both the third person singular and the third person plural copulas are omittable.Ali burada andAli buradadır both mean'Ali is here', andOnlar aç andOnlar açlar both mean'They are hungry'. Both of the sentences are acceptable and grammatically correct, but sentences with the copula are more formal.
The Turkish first person singular copula suffix is omitted when introducing oneself.Bora ben'I am Bora' is grammatically correct, butBora benim (same sentence with the copula) is not for an introduction (but is grammatically correct in other cases).
Further restrictions may apply before omission is permitted. For example, in theIrish language,is, the present tense of the copula, may be omitted when thepredicate is a noun.Ba, the past/conditional, cannot be deleted. If the present copula is omitted, the pronoun (e.g.,é,í,iad) preceding the noun is omitted as well.
Sometimes, the termcopula is taken to include not only a language's equivalent(s) to the verbbe but also other verbs or forms that serve to link a subject to a predicative expression (while addingsemantic content of their own). For example, English verbs such asbecome,get,feel,look,taste,smell, andseem can have this function, as in the following sentences (the predicative expression, the complement of the verb, is in italics):
She becamea student.
They looktired.
The milk tastesbad.
That bread smellsgood.
I feelbad that she can't come with us.
London stands (is)on the river Thames.
How is Mary? ; She seems (is)well (fine).
(This usage should be distinguished from the use of some of these verbs as "action" verbs, as inThey look at the wall, in whichlook denotes an action and cannot be replaced by the basic copulaare.)
Some verbs have rarer, secondary uses as copular verbs, such as the verbfall in sentences such asThe zebra fell victim to the lion.
These extra copulas are sometimes called "semi-copulas" or "pseudo-copulas."[18] For a list of common verbs of this type in English, seeList of English copulae.
InIndo-European languages, the words meaningto be are sometimes similar to each other. Due to the high frequency of their use, their inflection retains a considerable degree of similarity in some cases. Thus, for example, the English formis is acognate of Germanist, Latinest, Persianast and Russianjest', even though the Germanic, Italic, Iranian and Slavic language groups split at least 3000 years ago. The origins of the copulas of most Indo-European languages can be traced back to fourProto-Indo-European stems:*es- (*h1es-),*sta- (*steh2-),*wes- and*bhu- (*bʰuH-).
The English copular verbbe has eight basic forms (be,am,is,are,being,was,were,been) and five negative forms (ain't in some dialects,isn't,aren't,wasn't,weren't).[19] No other English verb has more than five forms. Additional archaic forms includeart,wast,wert, and occasionallybeest (as asubjunctive). The possibility of copula omission is mentioned under§ Zero copula.
A particular construction found in English (particularly in speech) is the use oftwo successive copulas when only one appears necessary, as inMy point is, is that....[20] The acceptability of this construction is adisputed matter in English prescriptive grammar.
The simple English copulabe may on occasion be substituted by other verbs with near identical meanings.
In Persian, the verbto be can take the form of eitherast (cognate to Englishis) orbudan (cognate tobe).
| Aseman abiast. | آسمان آبیاست | 'The skyis blue.' |
| Aseman abikhahad bood. | آسمان آبیخواهد بود | 'The skywill be blue.' |
| Aseman abibood. | آسمان آبیبود | 'The skywas blue.' |
InHindustani (Hindi andUrdu), the copulaहोनाhonāہونا can be put into four grammatical aspects (simple, habitual, perfective, and progressive) and each of those four aspects can be put into five grammatical moods (indicative, presumptive, subjunctive, contrafactual, and imperative).[21] Some example sentences using the simple aspect are shown below:
| Hindi | Urdu | Transliteration | English | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple Indicative | Present | आसमान नीला है। | آسمان نیلا ہے | āsmān nīlahai. | 'the skyis blue.' |
| Perfect | आसमान नीला हुआ। | آسمان نیلا ہوا | āsmān nīlahuā. | 'the skybecame blue.' | |
| Imperfect | आसमान नीला था। | آسمان نیلا تھا | āsmān nīlathā. | 'the skywas blue.' | |
| Future | आसमान नीला होएगा। | آسمان نیلا ہوگا | āsmān nīlahoegā. | 'the skywill be blue.' | |
| Simple Subjunctive | Present | आसमान नीला हो। | آسمان نیلا ہو | āsmān nīlaho. | 'the skybe blue.' |
| Future | आसमान नीला होए। | آسمان نیلا ہوے | āsmān nīlahoe. | 'the skybecomes blue.' | |
| Simple Presumptive Present | आसमान नीला होगा। | آسمان نیلا ہوگا | āsmān nīlāhogā. | 'the skymight be blue.' | |
| Simple Contrafactual Past | आसमान नीला होता। | آسمان نیلا ہوتا | āsmān nīlahotā. | 'the skywould have been blue.' | |
Besides the verbहोनाhonāہونا'to be', there are three other verbs which can also be used as the copula:रहनाrêhnāرہنا'to stay',जानाjānāجانا'to go', andआनाānāآنا'to come'.[22] The following table shows the conjugations of the copulaहोनाhonāہونا in the five grammatical moods in the simple aspect. The transliteration scheme used isISO 15919.
| Hindustani Copulaहोनाہونا'to be' [Simple Aspect] | ||||||
| Mood | Tense | Gender | Pronouns | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ma͠i | tū | tum | āp,ham | |||
| Indicative | Present | ♂ ♀ | hū̃ | hai | ho | ha͠i |
| Perfect | ♂ | huā | hue | |||
| ♀ | huī | huī̃ | ||||
| Imperfect | ♂ | thā | the | |||
| ♀ | thī | thī̃ | ||||
| Future | ♂ | hoū̃gā | hoegā | hooge | hoẽge | |
| ♀ | hoū̃gī | hoegī | hoogī | hoẽgī | ||
| Presumptive | All | ♂ | hū̃gā | hogā | hoge | hõge |
| ♀ | hū̃gī | hogī | hogī | hõgī | ||
| Subjunctive | Present | ♂ ♀ | hū̃ | ho | hõ | |
| Future | ♂ ♀ | hoū̃ | hoe | hoo | hoẽ | |
| Contrafactual | Past | ♂ | hotā | hote | ||
| ♀ | hotī | hotī̃ | ||||
| Imperative | Present | ♂ ♀ | — | ho | hoo | hoiye |
| Future | ♂ ♀ | — | hoiyo | honā | hoiyegā | |
| Note:the third person singular and plural conjugations are respectively the same as the second person intimate and formal conjugations. | ||||||
Copulas in theRomance languages usually consist of two different verbs that can be translated as "to be", the main one from the Latinesse (viaVulgar Latinessere;esse deriving from*es-), often referenced assum (another of the Latin verb'sprincipal parts) and a secondary one fromstare (from*sta-), often referenced asstō. The resulting distinction in the modern forms is found in all theIberian Romance languages, and to a lesser extent Italian, but not in French or Romanian. The difference is that the first usually refers to essential characteristics, while the second refers to states and situations, e.g., "Bob is old" versus "Bob is well." A similar division is found in the non-RomanceBasque language (viz.egon andizan). (The English words just used, "essential" and "state", are also cognate with the Latin infinitivesesse andstare. The word "stay" also comes from Latinstare, through Middle Frenchestai, stem of Old Frenchester.) In Spanish and Portuguese, the high degree of verbalinflection, plus the existence of two copulas (ser andestar), means that there are 105 (Spanish) and 110 (Portuguese)[23] separate forms to express the copula, compared to eight in English and one in Chinese.
| Copula | Language | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Italian | Spanish | Portuguese | English | |
| Sum-derived | Bobè vecchio. | Bobes viejo. | Bobé velho. | 'Bob is old.' |
| Sto-derived | Bobsta bene. | Bobestá bien. | Bobestá bem | 'Bob is well.' |
In some cases, the verb itself changes the meaning of the adjective/sentence. The following examples are from Portuguese:
| Copula | Example 1 | Example 2 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portuguese | Spanish | English | Portuguese | Spanish | English | |
| Sum-derived | Bobé esquisito. | Bobes extraño. | 'Bob is weird.' | Bobé parvo. | Bobes idiota. | 'Bob is foolish.' |
| Sto-derived | Bobestá esquisito. | Bobestá extraño. | 'Bob is looking/being strange.' | Bobestá parvo. | Bobestá idiota. | 'Bob is acting/being silly.' |
SomeSlavic languages make a distinction between essence and state (similar to that discussed in the above section on theRomance languages), by putting a predicative expression denoting a state into theinstrumental case, and essential characteristics are in thenominative. This can apply with other copula verbs as well: the verbs for "become" are normally used with the instrumental case.
As noted above under§ Zero copula, Russian and otherNorth Slavic languages generally or often omit the copula in the present tense.
InIrish andScottish Gaelic, there are two copulas, and thesyntax is also changed when one is distinguishing between states or situations and essential characteristics.
Describing the subject's state or situation typically uses the normalVSO ordering with the verbbí. The copulais is used to state essential characteristics or equivalences.
| Is fear é Liam. | 'Liam is a man.' | (lit.'Is man Liam.') |
| Is leabhar é sin. | 'That is a book.' | (lit.'Is book it that.') |
The wordis is the copula (rhymes with the English word "miss").
The pronoun used with the copula is different from the normal pronoun. For a masculine singular noun,é is used (for "he" or "it"), as opposed to the normal pronounsé; for a feminine singular noun,í is used (for "she" or "it"), as opposed to normal pronounsí; for plural nouns,iad is used (for "they" or "those"), as opposed to the normal pronounsiad.[24]
To describe being in a state, condition, place, or act, the verb "to be" is used:Tá mé ag rith.'I am running.'[25]
TheNorth Levantine Arabic dialect, spoken in Syria and Lebanon, has a negative copula formed by ماmā / ma and a suffixed pronoun.[26]
| Negative copula in Levantine[26] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | ||
| 1st person (m/f) | مانيmāni | ماناmāna | |
| 2nd person | m | مانَكmānak | مانكُنmānkon |
| f | مانِكmānek | ||
| 3rd person | m | مانوmāno | مانلُنmānon |
| f | ماناmāna | ||
InChichewa, aBantu language spoken mainly inMalawi, a very similar distinction exists between permanent and temporary states as in Spanish and Portuguese, but only in the present tense. For a permanent state, in the 3rd person, the copula used in the present tense isndi (negativesí):[27][28]
For the 1st and 2nd persons the particlendi is combined with pronouns, e.g.,ine'I':
For temporary states and location, the copula is the appropriate form of the defective verb-li:
For the 1st and 2nd persons the person is shown, as normally with Chichewa verbs, by the appropriate pronominal prefix:
In the past tenses,-li is used for both types of copula:
In the future, subjunctive, or conditional tenses, a form of the verbkhala'sit/dwell' is used as a copula:
Uniquely, the existence of the copulative verbalizer suffix in the Southern PeruvianAymaran language variety, Muylaq' Aymara, is evident only in the surfacing of a vowel that would otherwise have been deleted because of the presence of a following suffix, lexically prespecified to suppress it. As the copulative verbalizer has no independent phonetic structure, it is represented by the Greek letter ʋ in the examples used in this entry.
Accordingly, unlike in most other Aymaran variants, whose copulative verbalizer is expressed with a vowel-lengthening component, -:, the presence of the copulative verbalizer in Muylaq' Aymara is often not apparent on the surface at all and is analyzed as existing only meta-linguistically. However, in a verb phrase such as "It is old", the nounthantha'old' does not require the copulative verbalizer:thantha-wa'It is old'.
It is now pertinent to make some observations about the distribution of the copulative verbalizer. The best place to start is with words in which its presence or absence is obvious. When the vowel-suppressing first person simple tense suffix attaches to a verb, the vowel of the immediately preceding suffix is suppressed (in the examples in this subsection, the subscript "c" appears prior to vowel-suppressing suffixes in the interlinear gloss to better distinguish instances ofdeletion that arise from the presence of a lexically pre-specified suffix from those that arise from other (e.g. phonotactic) motivations). Consider the verbsara-, which is inflected for the first person simple tense and so, predictably, loses its final root vowel:sar(a)-ct-wa'I go'.
However, prior to the suffixation of the first person simple suffix-ct to the same root nominalized with the agentive nominalizer-iri, the word must be verbalized. The fact that the final vowel of-iri below is not suppressed indicates the presence of an intervening segment, the copulative verbalizer:sar(a)-iri-ʋ-t-wa'I usually go'.
It is worthwhile to compare of the copulative verbalizer in Muylaq' Aymara as compared to La Paz Aymara, a variant which represents this suffix with vowel lengthening. Consider the near-identical sentences below, both translations of "I have a small house" in which the nominal rootuta-ni'house-attributive' is verbalized with the copulative verbalizer, but the correspondence between the copulative verbalizer in these two variants is not always a strict one-to-one relation.[29]
| La Paz Aymara: | ma: jisk'a uta-ni-:-ct(a)-wa | |
| Muylaq' Aymara: | ma isk'a uta-ni-ʋ-ct-wa |
As in English, the verb "to be" (qopna) is irregular inGeorgian (aKartvelian language); 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. | 'Iam a teacher.' | |
| Masc'avlebeli viknebi. | 'Iwill be a teacher.' | |
| Masc'avlebeli viqavi. | 'Iwas a teacher.' | |
| Masc'avlebeli vqopilvar. | 'Ihave been a teacher.' | |
| Masc'avlebeli vqopiliqavi. | 'Ihad been a teacher.' |
In the last two examples (perfective and pluperfect), two roots are used in one verb compound. In the perfective tense, the rootqop (which is the expected root for the perfective tense) is followed by the rootar, which is the root for the present tense. In the pluperfective tense, again, the rootqop is followed by the past tense rootqav. This formation is very similar toGerman (anIndo-European language), where the perfect and the pluperfect are expressed in the following way:
| Ichbin Lehrergewesen. | 'I have been a teacher', literally'Iam teacherbeen.' | |
| Ichwar Lehrergewesen. | 'I had been a teacher', literally'Iwas teacherbeen.' |
Here,gewesen is the past participle ofsein'to be' in German. In both examples, as 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 aspects.
Haitian Creole, aFrench-based creole language, has three forms of the copula:se,ye, and thezero copula, no word at all (the position of which will be indicated withØ, just for purposes of illustration).
Although no textual record exists of Haitian-Creole at its earliest stages of development from French,se is derived from French[se] (writtenc'est), which is the normal French contraction of[sə] (that, writtence) and the copula[e] (is, writtenest) (a form of the verbêtre).
The derivation ofye is less obvious; but we can assume that the French source was[ile] ("he/it is", writtenil est), which, in rapidly spoken French, is very commonly pronounced as[je] (typically writteny est).
The use of a zero copula is unknown in French, and it is thought to be an innovation from the early days when Haitian-Creole was first developing as a Romance-basedpidgin. Latin also sometimes used a zero copula.
Which ofse/ye/Ø is used in any given copula clause depends on complex syntactic factors that we can superficially summarize in the following four rules:
1. UseØ (i.e., no word at all) in declarative sentences where the complement is an adjective phrase, prepositional phrase, or adverb phrase:
2. Usese when the complement is a noun phrase. But, whereas other verbs come after any tense/mood/aspect particles (such aspa to mark negation, orte to explicitly mark past tense, orap to mark progressive aspect),se comes before any such particles:
Chal
Charles
se
is
ekriven.
writer.
Chal se ekriven.
Charles is writer.
"Charles is a writer."
Chal,
Charles,
ki
who
se
is
ekriven,
writer,
pa
not
vini.
come.
Chal, ki se ekriven, pa vini.
Charles, who is writer, not come.
3. Usese where French and English have adummy "it" subject:
Se
C'est
"It's
mwen!
moi!
me!"
Se mwen!
C'est moi!
"It's me!"
Se
C'est
"It's
pa
pas
not
fasil.
facile.
easy"
Se pa fasil.
C'est pas facile.
"It's not easy"
4. Finally, use the other copula formye in situations where the sentence's syntax leaves the copula at the end of a phrase:
Pou
Of
kimoun
who
liv-la
book-the
te
ye?
be?
Pou kimoun liv-la te ye?
Of who book-the PAST be?
"Whose book was it?"
M
I
pa
not
konnen
know
kimoun
who
li
he
ye.
is.
M pa konnen kimoun li ye.
I not know who he is.
"I don't know who he is."
Se
C'est
Be
yon
un
a
ekriven
écrivain
writer
Chal
Charles
Charles
ye.
est.
be.
Se yon ekriven Chal ye.
C'est un écrivain Charles est.
Be a writer Charles be.
"Charles is awriter!"
The above is, however, only a simplified analysis.[30][31]
TheJapanese copula (most often translated into English as an inflected form of "to be") is unique among verbs in Japanese. It is highly irregular, and in several ways behaves in ways other verbs do not; such as requiring a separaterelativised form in some circumstances, and acting simply as a marker offormality/politeness with no predication force in some circumstances. In the most basic case, it behaves like a normal verb with irregular forms, which (like most copulas crosslinguistically) takes a non-case-marked complement instead of an object.
私
Watashi
I
学生
gakusei
student
私 は 学生 だ。
Watashi wa gakusei da.
I TOP student COP
'I'm a student.'
これ
Kore
this
ペン
pen
pen
これ は ペン です。
Kore wa pen desu.
this TOP pen COP-POL
'This is a pen.'
As with all verbs in Japanese, it is necessary to mark the speaker's implied social relationship to theaddressee by the choice of verb form. The following two sentences differ only in the fact that the first is appropriate only between decently close friends or family, or said by someone of significantly higher social status than the listener, and the second is only appropriate outside of such circumstances.
| あれはホテルだ。 | Are wa hoteru da. | 'That's a hotel.' | |
| あれはホテルです。 | Are wa hoteru desu. | 'That is a hotel.' |
Japanese has two classes of words which correspond to adjectives in English, one of which requires a copula to become a predicate and one of which does not.
| このビールはおいしい。 | Kono bīru wa oishii. | 'This beer is delicious.' | |
| このビールは豪華だ。 | Kono bīru wa gouka da. | 'This beer is extravagant.' | |
| *このビールはおいしいだ。 | *Kono bīru wa oishii da. | Invalid, asoishii is its own predicate and does not need a copula to make it a predicate | |
However, the polite copuladesu is used as a means to mark the self-predicating class of adjectives as grammatically formal, and thus the formal equivalent ofkono bīru wa oishii iskono bīru wa oishii desu. In these situations, the copula is not serving as an actual predication device; it is only a means to supply formality marking.
The non-self-predicating class of adjectives is the one place in modern Japanese where a separaterelativiser form appears; these require the formna in order to modify nouns.
| このビールはおいしい。 | Kono bīru wa oishii. | 'This beer is delicious.' | |
| おいしいビール | oishii bīru | 'delicious beer' | |
| このビールは豪華だ。 | Kono bīru wa gouka da. | 'This beer is extravagant.' | |
| 豪華なビール | gouka na bīru | 'extravagant beer' | |
| *豪華ビール | *gouka bīru | Invalid, as this class of adjectives cannot just be placed next to a noun to modify it | |
| *豪華だビール | *gouka da bīru | Invalid, as the copula formda requires a specially marked form when it heads a relative clause, unlike all other verbs in modern Japanese | |
Etymologically the copula is a reduced form ofde aru, which effectively means 'exists as'; in formal situationsde aru or its formal formde arimasu can appear in place ofda ordesu, and in certain situations other forms ofaru may be appropriate (such asgozaru/gozaimasu). Nonstandard forms such asやya inKansai andじゃja in much of the rest of western Japan (see map above) are due to various dialects reducingde aru differently than theKantō-based standard form did.
The negative form of the copula is generallyde wa nai or its reduced formja nai (or in formal situations, substitutearimasen fornai). This includes thetopic markerwa, due to negative copula sentences typically implying some kind of contrastive topic-like force on the complement.De nai can occur in relative clauses, where information structure marking might be odd, butde wa nai is also a general negative copula and would be sensible still in any situationde nai might be used.
Many sentences in Japanese are structurally a headless relative clause nominalised byno (or its reduced formn) and then predicated with a copula; the structure is analogous to something like Englishit's that.... This structure is used to indicate that the statement is intended to answer a question or explain confusion a listener may have had (though the question it answers may not have ever been overtly spoken). This has largely been incorporated into Japanese'ssentence-final particle system, and is far more common than the equivalent English structure.
| そこにある。 | Soko ni aru. | 'It's over there.' |
| そこにあるんだ。 | Soko ni aru n da. | '(What's going on is that) it's over there.' |
Similarly,ja nai has also been recruited into the sentence-final particle system, and is used to mark a sentence that the speaker should have been decently obvious to the listener, or to indicate that the speaker is surprised to find that the sentence is true. In this role it can cooccur with an actual predicativeja nai, but not with the positiveda;da is omitted in such sentences.
| 明日じゃない！ | Ashita ja nai! | 'Why, it's tomorrow!' (differs from "It's not tomorrow" only by intonation;ja nai as a sentence-final particle is not a separate phonological unit while as a negative copula it is) |
| 明日じゃないじゃない！ | Ashita ja nai ja nai! | 'Why, itisn't tomorrow!' |
For sentences withpredicate nominatives, the copula이 (i-) is added to the predicate nominative (with no space in between).
| 바나나는 과일이다. | Ba-na-na-neun gwa-il-i-da. | 'Bananas are a fruit.' |
Some adjectives (usually colour adjectives) are nominalized and used with the copula이 (i-).
1. Without the copula이 (i-):
| 장미는 빨개요. | Jang-mi-neun ppal-gae-yo. | 'Roses are red.' |
2. With the copula이 (i-):
| 장미는 빨간색이다. | Jang-mi-neun ppal-gan-saek-i-da | 'Roses are red-coloured.' |
Some Korean adjectives are derived using the copula. Separating these articles and nominalizing the former part will often result in a sentence with a related, but different meaning. Using the separated sentence in a situation where the un-separated sentence is appropriate is usually acceptable as the listener can decide what the speaker is trying to say using the context.
 | This section usesSimplified Chinese characters, and pronunciation is indicated usingStandard Chinesepinyin |
InChinese, both states and qualities are, in general, expressed withstative verbs (SV) with no need for a copula, e.g., inChinese, "to be tired" (累lèi), "to be hungry" (饿è), "to be located at" (在zài), "to be stupid" (笨bèn) and so forth. A sentence can consist simply of a pronoun and such a verb: for example,我饿wǒ è ('I am hungry'). Usually, however, verbs expressing qualities are qualified by an adverb (meaning "very", "not", "quite", etc.); when not otherwise qualified, they are often preceded by很hěn, which in other contexts means "very", but in this use often has no particular meaning.
Only sentences with a noun as the complement (e.g., "This is my sister") use the copular 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" (我是中国人;我是中國人;wǒ shì Zhōngguórén;lit.'I am a Chinese person';'I am Chinese'). This是 is sometimes called anequative verb. Another possibility is for the complement to be just a noun modifier (ending in的;de), the noun being omitted:我的汽车是红色的;wǒ de qìchē shì hóngsè de; 'My car is red.(noun phrase indicator)'
Before theHan dynasty, the character是 served as ademonstrative pronoun meaning "this" (this usage survives in some idioms andproverbs.) Some linguists believe that是 developed into a copula because it often appeared, as a repetitive subject, after the subject of a sentence (inclassical Chinese we can say, for example: "George W. Bush,this president of the United States" meaning "George W. Bushis the president of the United States).[32] The character是 appears to be formed as acompound of characters with the meanings of "early" and "straight."
Another use of是 in modern Chinese is in combination with the modifier的de to mean "yes" or to show agreement. For example:
Question:你的汽车是不是红色的？nǐ de qìchē shì bú shì hóngsè de?'Is your car red or not?'
Response:是的shì de'Is', meaning "Yes", or不是bú shì'Not is', meaning "No."
(A more common way of showing that the person asking the question is correct is by simply saying "right" or "correct",对duì; the corresponding negative answer is不对bú duì'not right'.)
Yet another use of是 is in theshì...(de) construction, which is used to emphasize a particular element of the sentence; seeChinese grammar § Cleft sentences.
InHokkien是sī acts as the copula, and是/z/ is the equivalent inWu Chinese.Cantonese uses係 (Jyutping:hai6) instead of是; similarly,Hakka uses係he55.
In Siouan languages such asLakota, in principle almost all words—according to their structure—are verbs. So 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 wordwičháša refers to a man, and the verb'to be a man' is expressed aswimáčhaša/winíčhaša/wičháša'I am/you are/he is a man'. Yet there also is a copulahéčha'to be a ...' that in most cases is used:wičháša hemáčha/heníčha/héčha'I am/you are/he is a man'.
In order to express the statement'I am a doctor of profession', one has to saypezuta wičháša hemáčha. But, in order to express that that person is THE doctor (say, that had been phoned to help), one must use another copulaiyé'to be the one':
pežúta
medicine-man
wičháša
(kiŋ)
miyé
I-am-the-one
yeló
MALE ASSERT
pežúta wičháša (kiŋ) miyé yeló
medicine-man DEF ART I-am-the-oneMALE ASSERT
'I am the doctor'
In order to refer to space (e.g., Robert is in the house), various verbs are used, e.g.,yaŋkÁ (lit.,'to sit') for humans, orháŋ/hé'to stand upright' for inanimate objects of a certain shape. "Robert is in the house" could be translated asRobert thimáhel yaŋké (yeló), whereas "There's one restaurant next to the gas station" translates asOwótethipi wígli-oínažiŋ kiŋ hél isákhib waŋ hé.
Theconstructed languageLojban has two words that act similar to a copula in natural languages. The clauseme ... me'u turns whatever follows it into a predicate that means to be (among) what it follows. For example,me la .bob. (me'u) means "to be Bob", andme le ci mensi (me'u) means "to be one of the three sisters". Another one isdu, which is itself a predicate that means all its arguments are the same thing (equal).[33] One word which is often confused for a copula in Lojban, but is not one, iscu. It merely indicates that the word which follows is the main predicate of the sentence. For example,lo pendo be mi cu zgipre means "my friend is a musician", but the wordcu does not correspond to Englishis; instead, the wordzgipre, which is a predicate, corresponds to the entire phrase "is a musician". The wordcu is used to preventlo pendo be mi zgipre, which would mean "the friend-of-me type of musician".[34]
Frajzyngier (1986) argues that copulas may also develop from prepositions
Using E- prime was supposed to add clarity to the language.
With the intent of improving clarity, directness, and honesty, E-Prime simplifies the English language by omitting the verb 'to be, along with its conjugates (i.e. am, are, is, was, were, been, being.) 'Be,' which does not exist in all languages [...] promotes passive, ambiguous language that can confuse or mislead recipients who have sensitivity to subtle judgments or untruths.
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