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.

Use

We can identify several sub-uses of the copula:

Identity: "I only want to ''be'' myself." "When the area behind the dam fills, it ''will be'' a lake." "The Morning Star ''is'' the Evening Star." "Boys ''will be'' boys."

Class membership. To belong to a set or class: "She could ''be'' married." "Dogs ''are'' canines." "Moscow ''is'' a large city." Depending on one's point of view, all other uses can be considered derivatives of this use, including the following non-copular uses in English, as they all express a subset relationship.

Predication (property and relation attribution): "It hurts to ''be'' blue." "Will that house ''be'' big enough?" "The hen ''is'' next to the cockerel." "I ''am'' confused." Such attributes may also relate to temporary conditions as well as inherent qualities: "I will ''be'' tired after running." "Will you ''be'' going to the play tomorrow?" but please note that a linking verb has nothing to do with these so called "Be"- verbs.(see below)

Non-copular uses

As an auxiliary verb:

To form the passive voice: "I ''was'' told that you wanted to see me"

To add continuous aspect to tenses: "It is raining"

Meaning "to exist": "I want only to ''be'', and that is enough." "There's no sense in making a scientific inquiry about what species the Loch Ness Monster is, without first establishing that the Loch Ness Monster indeed ''is.''" "To be or not to be, that is the question." "I think therefore I am."

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

Along with copular sentences where the canonical order of predication is displayed - that is, the subject precedes the predicate - as in ''a picture of the wall is the cause of the riot'' there can also be "inverse copular sentences" where this order is mirrored as in ''the cause of the riot is a picture of the wall'' (cf. Everaert et al 2006). Although these two sentences are superficially very similar it can be shown that they embody very different properties. So, for example it is possible to form a sentence like ''which riot do you think that a picture of the wall is the cause of'' but not ''which wall do you think that the cause of the riot was a picture of''. The distinction between these two types of sentences, technically referred to as "canonical" vs. inverse copular sentences, respectively - and the unified theory of copular sentences associated to it - has been proved to be valid across-languages and has led to some refinement of the theory of clause structure. In particular it challenges one of the major dogmas of the theory of clause structure, i.e. that the two basic constituents of a sentence Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase are associated to the logical/grammatical functions of subject and predicate (cf. phrase structure rules and sentence (linguistics)). In fact, copular sentences show that this axiom is not adequate on empirical grounds since the Noun Phrase that cooccurs with the Verb Phrase in a copular sentence can be the predicate and the subject be contained in the Verb Phrase. Interestingly, it has been suggested that inverse copular sentences appear to play a sharp role in setting the pro-drop parameter. In Italian, for example in sentences of the type Noun Phrase verb Noun Phrase, the verb generally agrees with the Noun Phrase on the left with one exception: inverse copular sentences. One can construe minimal pairs like ''the cause of the riot is/

are these pictures of the wall'' vs. ''la causa della rivolta sono/*è queste foto del muro'': the two sentences are one the gloss of the other with only one difference: the copula is singular in Italian and plural in English. If one does not want to give up the idea that agreement is on the left, then the only option is to assume that pro occurs between the copula and the Noun Phrase on the left. That pro can occur as a predicate must be in fact independently assumed to assign a proper structure to sentences like ''sono io'' (is me: "it's me") which can by no means be considered a transformation of *''io sono'', which has no meaning.

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.

The Indo-European family

In Indo-European languages, the words meaning "to be" (originating in stem ''

es'') often sound 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 form ''is'' is an apparent cognate of German ''ist'', Latin ''est'' and Russian ''jest''', in spite the fact that the Germanic, Italic, and Slavic language groups split at least three thousand years ago.

A feature of most Romance languages 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 infinitives ''esse'' and ''stare''.) 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.

| || '''''sum''-derived || ''sto''-derived'''
|-
| || "Bob is old." || "Bob is well."
|-
| Italian || ''Bob è vecchio.'' || ''Bob sta bene.''
|-
| Spanish || ''Bob es viejo.'' || ''Bob está bien.''

In some cases, the verb itself changes the meaning of the adjective/sentence. The following examples are from Portuguese:

| '''''sum''-derived || ''sto''-derived'''
|-
| "Bob is old." || "Bob has grown old."
|-
| ''Bob é velho.'' || ''Bob está velho.''
|-
| "Bob is foolish." || "Bob is acting silly."
|-
|'' Bob é parvo.'' || ''Bob está parvo.''
|-
| "Bob is good." || "Bob is well."
|-
| ''Bob é bom.'' || ''Bob está bom.''

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 languages, 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

Haitian Creole, a French-based creole language, has a reputation as being rather exotic linguistically when compared to French and the other Romance languages; and it lives up to this reputation with its copula system. It has three forms of the copula: ''se'', ''ye'', and the zero copula, 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 sε), 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 Latin ''sum'').

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 jε).

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 Latin ''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:

''Li te _ an Ayiti.'' (She ''past-tense'' in Haiti; "she was in Haiti")

''Liv-la _ jon.'' (Book-the yellow; "the book is yellow")

''Timoun-yo _ lakay.'' (Kids-the home; "the kids are at home")

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:

''Chal se ekriven.'' (Charles is writer.)

''Chal se pa ekriven.'' (Charles is not writer; cf. With the verb ''kouri'' ("run"): ''Chal pa kouri'', not ''Chal kouri pa''.)

''Chal, ki se ekriven, pa vini.'' (Charles, who is writer, not come.)

Third: Use ''se'' where English or French have a dummy it subject:

''Se mwen!'' ("It's me!", French ''C'est moi!'')

''Se pa fasil.'' ("It's not easy", colloquial French ''C'est pas facile'')

And finally: use the other copula form, ''ye'', in situations where the sentence's syntax leaves the copula at the end of a phrase:

''Kijan ou ye?'' ("How you are?")

''Pou kimoun liv-la te ye?'' (Of who book-the ''past-tense'' is?; "Whose book was it?")

''M pa konnen kimoun li ye.'' (I not know who he is; "I don't know who he is.")

''Se yon ekriven Chal ye'' (It's a writer Charles is; "Charles is a ''writer''!"; cf. French ''C'est un écrivain qu'il est'')

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'' ("I ''am'' a teacher")
:''Masc'avlebeli viknebi'' ("I ''will be'' a teacher")
:''Masc'avlebeli viqavi'' ("I ''was'' a teacher")
:''Masc'avlebeli vqopilvar'' ("I ''have been'' a teacher")
:''Masc'avlebeli vqopiliqavi'' ("I ''had been'' a teacher")

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 gewesen'' ("I have been a teacher", literally "I am a teacher been")
:''Ich war Lehrer gewesen'' ("I had been a teacher", literally "I was a teacher been")

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.

Hungarian: Zero copula

In languages such as Russian or Hungarian, the copula in present tense is implied rather than spoken (Russian: я — человек, ''ya — chelovek'' "I (am) a human"; Hungarian: ''ő ember'', "he (is) a human"). This usage (also common in Semitic languages), 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)).

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:

私は学生だ。''Watashi wa gakusei da.'' "I am a student." (lit., I TOPIC student COPULA)

これはペンです。''Kore wa pen desu.'' "This is a pen." (lit., this TOPIC pen COPULA-POLITE)

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.

あれはホテルだ。''Are wa hoteru da''. "That's a hotel." (lit., that TOPIC hotel COPULA)

あれはホテルです。''Are wa hoteru desu''. "That is a hotel." (lit., that TOPIC hotel COPULA-POLITE)

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.

このビールはうまい。''Kono bīru wa umai.'' "This beer is good." (lit., this beer TOPIC be-tasty)

このビールはうまいです。''Kono bīru wa umai desu.'' "This beer is good." (lit., this beer TOPIC be-tasty POLITE)

^*このビールはうまいだ。^*''Kono bīru wa umai da.'' This is unacceptable because ''da'' may only serve as a predicate.

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.

本はテーブルにある。''Hon wa tēburu ni aru''. "The book is on a table."

キムさんはここにいる。''Kimu-san wa koko ni iru''. "Kim is here."

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).

Chinese

N.B. The characters used are simplified ones, and the transcriptions given in italics reflect standard Mandarin pronunciation, using the Pinyin system.

In Chinese languages, both states and qualities are generally expressed with stative verbs 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 a red one".

The history of the Chinese copula 是 is a controversial subject. Before the Han Dynasty, the character served as a demonstrative pronoun meaning "this" (this usage survives in some idioms and proverbs, as well as in Japanese). Some linguists argue that 是 developed into a copula because it often appeared, as a repetitive subject, after the subject of a sentence (in classical Chinese we can say, for example: "George W. Bush, ''this'' president of the United States" meaning "George W. Bush ''is'' the president of the United States). Other scholars cannot completely accept the explanation, proposing that 是 served as a demonstrative pronoun and a copula at the same time in ancient Chinese. Etymologically, 是 means "straight"; in modern Chinese, 是 means "yes" as an interjection, and "correct", "right" as an adjective, implying a sense of judgement.

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'' wicha's^a 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'' 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".

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 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:

Japanese: 吾輩は猫である。名前はまだない。 ''Wagahai wa neko de aru. Namae wa mada nai'' – ''I am a cat. As yet, I have no name''. — Natsume Sōseki

English: ''To be or not to be, that ''is'' the question''. — William Shakespeare

English: ''climb Mount Everest? Because it is there''. — George Mallory

Russian: ''Страна, которую ищут дети, есть'' kotoruju ishchut djeti, jest' – ''That land we yearn for in our childhood is there.'' — Prishvin

French: ''Je pense, donc je suis.'' – ''I think; therefore, I am''. — Descartes

Latin: ''Cogito ergo sum.'' — ''I think; therefore, I am''. — Descartes

Hungarian: ''Gondolkodom, tehát vagyok.'' – ''I think; therefore, I am''. — Descartes

Turkish: ''Düşünüyorum, öyleyse varım.'' – ''I think; therefore, I am''. — Descartes

Filipino/Tagalog: ''Ang kahalagahan ng pagiging seryo'' A translation-transplantation of ''The importance of being Earnest'' of Oscar Wilde in Filipino.

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.

Swedish: ''Vem vill bli miljonär?'' — ''Who wants ''to be'' a millionaire?''. — Bengt Magnusson

Swedish: ''Varför bestiga Mt. Everest? Därför att det finns där.'' — ''Why climb Mt. Everest? Because it ''is'' there''. — George Mallory

In ontology, philosophical discussions of the word "be" and its conjugations takes place over the meaning of the word ''is,'' the third person singular form of 'be', and whether the other senses can be reduced to one sense. For example, 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 be ''something''. Of course, the gerund form of "be", ''being'', is its own (vexed) topic: see being and existence.

References

Everaert, M. - van Riemsdijk, H - Goedemans, R. (eds) 2006 ''The Blackwell Companion to Syntax'', Volumes I-V, Blackwell, London: see "copular sentences" and "existential sentences and expletive ''there''" in Volume II.

Kneale, W. - Kneale, M. 1962 ''The Development of Logic'', Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Valdman & Philippe ''Ann Pale Kreyol: An Introductory Course in Haitian Creole''.

Essay on Lakota syntax

Moro, A. 1997 ''The raising of predicates. Predicative noun phrases and the theory of clause structure'', Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.

Category:Parts of speech
Category:Verb types

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