In linguistics , a copula /‘kɒpjələ/ ( pl. : copulas or copulae ; abbreviated cop ) is a word or phrase that links the subject of a sentence to a subject complement , such as the word is in the sentence "The sky is blue" or the phrase was not being in the sentence "It was not being cooperative." The word copula derives from the Latin noun for a "link" or "tie" that connects two different things.
42-460: [REDACTED] Look up been in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Been may refer to: To be Have been Been (surname) Beens , an ethnic group of Bangladesh Pungi or been, an Indian wind instrument Rudra veena or been, a string instrument See also [ edit ] Bean (disambiguation) Topics referred to by
84-422: A class or a subset relationship: She was a nurse. Cats are carnivorous mammals. Similarly they may express some property, relation or position, permanent or temporary: The trees are green. I am your boss. The hen is next to the cockerel. The children are confused. Some languages use different copulas, or different syntax, to denote a permanent, essential characteristic of something versus
126-418: A copula is to link the subject of a clause to a subject complement . A copular verb is often considered to be part of the predicate , the remainder being called a predicative expression . A simple clause containing a copula is illustrated below: The book is on the table. In that sentence, the noun phrase the book is the subject, the verb is serves as the copula, and the prepositional phrase on
168-552: A copula. Some co-occurrences are common. The English verb to be is also used as an auxiliary verb , especially for expressing passive voice (together with the past participle ) or expressing progressive aspect (together with the present participle ): The man was killed. (passive) It is raining. (progressive) Other languages' copulas have additional uses as auxiliaries. For example, French être can be used to express passive voice similarly to English be ; both French être and German sein are used to express
210-430: 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
252-429: 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),
294-412: A non-copular use as an existential verb, meaning "to exist". This use is illustrated in the following sentences: I want only to be , and that is enough ; I think therefore I am ; To be or not to be , that is the question. In these cases, the verb itself expresses a predicate (that of existence ), rather than linking to a predicative expression as it does when used as a copula. In ontology it
336-585: A noun, but they may still behave otherwise like ordinary verbs: -u- in Inuit languages . In some other languages, like Beja and Ket , the copula takes the form of suffixes that attach to a noun but are distinct from the person agreement markers used on predicative verbs . This phenomenon is known as nonverbal person agreement (or nonverbal subject agreement ), and the relevant markers are always established as deriving from cliticized independent pronouns. In some languages, copula omission occurs within
378-485: A particular grammatical context. For example, speakers of Bengali , Russian , Indonesian , Turkish , Hungarian , Arabic , Hebrew , Geʽez and Quechuan 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)
420-401: A sentence, clause, or phrase that, when it is removed, will not affect the remainder of the sentence except to discard from it some auxiliary information. A more detailed definition of the adjunct emphasizes its attribute as a modifying form, word, or phrase that depends on another form, word, or phrase, being an element of clause structure with adverbial function. An adjunct is not an argument or
462-493: A subject or an object: This terminology is used in grammar books: However, this use of terminology is avoided by many modern theories of syntax, which typically view the expressions in bold as part of the clause predicate , which means they are not complements of the subject or object but rather are properties that are predicated of the subject or object. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language assigns
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#1732790568883504-453: A temporary state. For examples, see the sections on the Romance languages , Slavic languages and Irish . In many languages the principal copula is a verb , like English (to) be , German sein , Mixtec kuu , Touareg emous , etc. It may inflect for grammatical categories like tense , aspect and mood , like other verbs in the language. Being a very commonly used verb, it
546-536: A unified theory of copular sentences, it has been proposed that the English there -sentences are subtypes of inverse copular constructions . Predicates formed using a copula may express identity: that the two noun phrases (subject and complement) have the same referent or express an identical concept: I want only to be myself. The Morning Star is the Evening Star. They may also express membership of
588-410: Is a human ' ; but: (paykuna) runakunam kanku ' (they) are human ' . In Māori , 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)
630-412: 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. Complement (grammar) In grammar , a complement is a word , phrase , or clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a given expression. Complements are often also arguments (expressions that help complete
672-482: Is also used by a variety of other English speakers. An example is the sentence "I saw twelve men, each a soldier." 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 written μακρός ὁ οἴκος , "large the house (is)." In Quechua ( Southern Quechua used for the examples), zero copula is restricted to present tense in third person singular ( kan ): Payqa runam ' (s)he
714-559: 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
756-586: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Copula (linguistics)#English A copula is often a verb or a verb-like word, though this is not universally the case. A verb that is a copula is sometimes called a copulative or copular verb . In English primary education grammar courses, a copula is often called a linking verb . In other languages, copulas show more resemblances to pronouns , as in Classical Chinese and Guarani , or may take
798-479: Is likely that the copula has irregular inflected forms; in English, the verb be 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.; see English verbs for details). Other copulas show more resemblances to pronouns . That is the case for Classical Chinese and Guarani , for instance. In highly synthetic languages , copulas are often suffixes , attached to
840-451: Is omitted when introducing oneself. Bora ben ' I am Bora ' is grammatically correct, but Bora ben im (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 the Irish language , is , the present tense of the copula, may be omitted when the predicate
882-467: Is six o'clock ' . Hungarian uses copula lenni 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 ' (but Róbert öreg volt ' Bob was old ' , éhesek voltak ' they were hungry ' , Kati nyelvtudós volt ' Cathy
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#1732790568883924-582: 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 . However, Abelard in his Dialectica made a reductio ad absurdum argument against the idea that the copula can express existence. Similar examples can be found in many other languages; for example, the French and Latin equivalents of I think therefore I am are Je pense, donc je suis and Cogito ergo sum , where suis and sum are
966-478: 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 like "if I was/were to come", see English conditional sentences . (By certain criteria, the English copula be may always be considered an auxiliary verb; see Diagnostics for identifying auxiliary verbs in English .) The English to be and its equivalents in certain other languages also have
1008-520: Is usually not a complement of the predicate: While it is less common to do so, one sometimes extends this reasoning to subject arguments: In those examples, the subject and object arguments are taken to be complements. In this area, the terms complement and argument thus overlap in meaning and use. Note that this practice takes a subject complement to be something very different from the subject complements of traditional grammar, which are predicative expressions, as just mentioned above. Construed in
1050-410: The perfect forms of certain verbs (formerly English be was also): Je suis arrivé(e) French for ' I have arrived ' , literally ' I am arrived ' . 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
1092-446: The broadest sense, any time a given expression is somehow necessary in order to render another expression "complete", it can be characterized as a complement of that expression: Construed in the broad sense, many complements cannot be understood as arguments. The argument concept is tied to the predicate concept in a way that the complement concept is not. In linguistics, an adjunct is an optional, or structurally-dispensable, part of
1134-411: The cause of the riot is (not are ) these pictures of the wall . Compare Italian la causa della rivolta sono queste foto del muro ; notice the use of the plural sono to agree with plural queste foto ' these photos ' rather than with singular la causa ' the cause ' . In instances where an English syntactical subject comprises a prepositional object that is pluralized, however,
1176-506: The clause without changing the meaning ( ko tēnei tāku pukapuka is the same as ko 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). 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
1218-437: The copula in bold and the predicative expression in italics: Mary and John are my friends . The sky was blue . I am taller than most people . The birds and the beasts were there . The three components (subject, copula and predicative expression) do not necessarily appear in that order: their positioning depends on the rules for word order applicable to the language in question. In English (an SVO language),
1260-412: The copula usually reappears. Some languages drop the copula in poetic or aphoristic contexts. Examples in English include Such poetic copula dropping is more pronounced in some languages other than English, like the Romance languages . In informal speech of English, the copula may also be dropped in general sentences, as in "She a nurse." It is a feature of African-American Vernacular English , but
1302-410: The difficulty of maintaining, in the case of such sentences, the usual division into a subject noun phrase and a predicate verb phrase . Another issue is verb 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 in
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1344-470: The equivalents of English "am", normally used as copulas. However, other languages prefer a different verb for existential use, as in the Spanish version Pienso, luego existo (where the verb existir ' to exist ' is used rather than the copula ser or estar ' to be ' ). Another type of existential usage is in clauses of the there is ... or there are... type. Languages differ in
1386-629: The form of suffixes attached to a noun, as in Korean , Beja , and Inuit languages . Most languages have one main copula (in English, the verb "to be"), although some (like Spanish , Portuguese and Thai ) have more than one, while others have none . While the term copula is generally used to refer to such principal verbs, it may also be used for a wider group of verbs with similar potential functions (like become , get , feel and seem in English); alternatively, these might be distinguished as "semi-copulas" or "pseudo-copulas". The principal use of
1428-403: The meaning of a predicate ). In many non-theoretical grammars, the terms subject complement (also called a predicative of the subject ) and object complement are employed to denote the predicative expressions ( predicative complements ), such as predicative adjectives and nominals (also called a predicative nominative or predicate nominative ), that serve to assign a property to
1470-421: 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. They have been the subject of much theoretical analysis, particularly in regard to
1512-497: The prepositional object agrees with the predicative expression, e.g. "What kind of 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 verb to be , there are many other verbs that can be used in a copular sense as well. And more tenuously A copular verb may also have other uses supplementary to or distinct from its uses as
1554-405: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Been . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Been&oldid=1194514070 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
1596-500: The table is the predicative expression. In some theories of grammar, the whole expression is on the table may be called a predicate or a verb phrase . The predicative expression accompanying the copula, also known as the complement of the copula, may take any of several possible forms: it may be a noun or noun phrase, an adjective or adjective phrase, a prepositional phrase (as above), or an adverb or another adverbial phrase expressing time or location. Examples are given below, with
1638-477: 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 ' . Alternatively, in many cases, the particle ko can be used as a copulative (though not all instances of ko are used as thus, like all other Māori particles, ko has multiple purposes): Ko nui te whare ' The house
1680-458: The term "predicative complement" to both uses and shifts the terminological distinction to the verb: In many modern grammars (for instance in those that build on the X-bar framework ), the object argument of a verbal predicate is called a complement. In fact, this use of the term is the one that currently dominates in linguistics. A main aspect of this understanding of complements is that the subject
1722-476: The way they express such meanings; some of them use the copular verb, possibly with an expletive pronoun like the English there , while other languages use different verbs and constructions, like the French il y a (which uses parts of the verb avoir ' to have ' , not the copula) or the Swedish finns (the passive voice of the verb for "to find"). For details, see existential clause . Relying on
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1764-425: Was a linguist ' ). In Turkish, both the third person singular and the third person plural copulas are omittable. Ali burada and Ali burada dır both mean ' Ali is here ' , and Onlar aç and Onlar aç lar 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
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