In most languages with nominal sentences such as Russian, Arabic and Hebrew, the copular verb does not surface in indicatival present tense sentences. Conversely, these languages allow the copular verb in non-present sentences.
|
|
A verb that is a copula is sometimes called a copulative or copular verb.
|
|
A copular verb may also have other uses supplementary to or distinct from its uses as a copula.
|
|
Mandarin Chinese exhibits both DP-DP and DP-CP structures, and it is classified as having copular equative construction because there is overt copula. The copular verb 是 shì can be used in both of these structures.
|
|
Equative sentences resemble predicative sentences in that they have two noun phrases and the copular verb ‘to be’. However, the similarity is superficial. Compare the following two sentences: (4) Cicero is Tully. (5) Cicero is an orator and philosopher.
|
|
Hungarian has lost most evidence of a negative verb, but the negation particle 'nem' becomes 'ne' before verbs in the jussive/imperative (also sometimes called the conditional mood, or J-mood). Furthermore, the 3rd person present indicative of the copular verb ('lenni') has unique negative forms 'nincs(en)' and 'nincsenek' as opposed to 'nem van' and 'nem vannak', but only when the particle and verb would occur adjacently. In all other instances the copular verb acts regularly. These forms are also unique in that they have an existential role "there is (not)" and "there are (not)".
|
|
The English copular verb be has eight forms (more than any other English verb): be, am, is, are, being, was, were, been. Additional archaic forms include art, wast, wert, and occasionally beest (as a subjunctive). For more details see English verbs. For the etymology of the various forms, see Indo-European copula.
|
|
The verb go is an irregular verb in the English language (see English irregular verbs). It has a wide range of uses; its basic meaning is "to move from one place to another". Apart from the copular verb be, the verb go is the only English verb to have a suppletive past tense, namely went.
|
|
Do-support is not used when there is already an auxiliary or copular verb present or with non-finite verb forms (infinitives and participles). It is sometimes used with subjunctive forms. Furthermore, the use of do as an auxiliary should be distinguished from the use of do as a normal lexical verb, as in They do their homework.
|
|
Different world languages approach equatives in different ways. The major difference between languages is whether or not they use a copular verb or a non-verbal element (e.g. demonstrative pronoun) to equate the two expressions. The term equative is also sometimes applied to comparative-like constructions in which the degrees compared are identical rather than distinct: e.g.
|
|
This description concerns Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Like Russian and Polish, MSA uses no copular verb in present tense equative sentences but requires one in the past and future. The subject and predicate in MSA equative sentences must agree in case (nominative), number, and gender Abdel-Ghafer, O. (2003). Copular constructions in modern standard Arabic, modern Hebrew and English.
|
|
However such inversion is only possible with an auxiliary or copular verb; if no such verb would otherwise be present, do-support is used. In most imperative clauses the subject is absent: Eat your dinner! However imperative clauses may include the subject for emphasis: You eat your dinner!. The form of the verb is the base form of the verb, such as eat, write, be.
|
|
Are marginal members of the noun category. Semantically the describe some property or quality attributed to something and grammatically they usually behave like adjectives, that is they occur as adjuncts in a copular verb phrase. However unlike adjectives they do occasionally appear in distinctly nominal slots such as in the subject or object position to a verb. Further, unlike an adjective, they cannot simply follow a head noun as an adjunct.
|
|
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 the form of suffixes attached to a noun, as in Korean, Beja, and Inuit languages.
|
|
A headline is text above a newspaper article, indicating its topic. The headline catches the attention of the reader and relates well to the topic. Modern headlines are typically written in an abbreviated style omitting many elements of a complete sentence and almost always including a non-copular verb. Mainstream media are influenced by issues of objective importance when deciding to report a story and its headline, but also on its newsworthiness, especially when it is competing with other media outlets.
|
|
The English copular verb be can be used as an auxiliary verb, 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, and both French être and German sein are used to express the perfect forms of certain verbs: ::Je suis arrivé.
|
|
The term equative (or equational) is used in linguistics to refer to constructions where two entities are equated with each other. For example, the sentence Susan is our president, equates two entities "Susan" and "our president". In English, equatives are typically expressed using a copular verb such as "be", although this is not the only use of this verb. Equatives can be contrasted with predicative constructions where one entity is identified as a member of a set, such as Susan is a president.
|
|
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": . This is used frequently; for example, instead of having a verb meaning "to be Chinese," the usual expression is "to be a Chinese person" (; "I am a Chinese person;" "I am Chinese").
|
|
Later texts from the Middle English era, now based on an eastern Midland rather than a Wessex standard, reflect the significant impact that Norse had on the language. In all, English borrowed about 2000 words from Old Norse, several hundred surviving in Modern English. Norse borrowings include many very common words, such as anger, bag, both, hit, law, leg, same, skill, sky, take, window, and even the pronoun they. Norse influence is also believed to have reinforced the adoption of the plural copular verb form are rather than alternative Old English forms like sind.
|
|
Negation of verbs usually takes place with the addition of the particle not (or its shortened form n't) to an auxiliary or copular verb, with do-support being used if there is otherwise no auxiliary. However, if a sentence already contains a negative word (never, nothing, etc.), then there is not usually any additional not. Questions (interrogative constructions) are generally formed using subject–auxiliary inversion, again using do-support if there is otherwise no auxiliary. In negative questions, it is possible to invert with just the auxiliary (should we not help?) or with the contracted negation (shouldn't we help?).
|
|
The situation is similar with the strong verbs in German (these may or may not be described as irregular). In French, what are traditionally called the "regular -re verbs" (those that conjugate like vendre) are not in fact particularly numerous, and may alternatively be considered to be just another group of similarly behaving irregular verbs. The most unambiguously irregular verbs are often very commonly used verbs such as the copular verb be in English and its equivalents in other languages, which frequently have a variety of suppletive forms and thus follow an exceptionally unpredictable pattern of conjugation.
|
|
Analysis of these sentences will show that there is a radical difference between the equative sentence and the predicational sentence in English. The predicational sentence in (5) ascribes the property to the referent noun phrase whereas the equative sentence basically says that the first and second noun phrase share the same referent. It is difficult to distinguish between a predicative and equative sentence in English as both use a similar construction and both require the copular verb ‘to be’. Unlike specificational sentences, truly equative sentences cannot be analyzed as syntactically inverted predications, because neither expression is functioning as a predicate.
|
|
Languages differ in 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 être) or the Swedish finns (the passive voice of the verb for "to find"). For details, see existential clause. Relying on a unified theory of copular sentences, it has been proposed that the English there-sentences are subtypes of inverse copular constructions.See Moro 1997, and "existential sentences and expletive there" in Everaert et al.
|
|
The copular verb be has multiple irregular forms in the present tense: am for first person singular (which together with the subject pronoun is often contracted to I'm), is for third person singular (often contracted to 's), and are for plural and second person (often contracted to 're chiefly after the pronouns you, we, they). It also has two past tense forms: was for first and third person singular, and were for plural and second person (also used as a past subjunctive with all persons; see English subjunctive). The past participle is been, and the present participle and gerund is the regular being. The base form be is used regularly as an infinitive, imperative and (present) subjunctive.
|
|
As with English and modern Chinese, Old Chinese sentences can be analysed as a subject (a noun phrase, sometimes understood) followed by a predicate, which could be of either nominal or verbal type. Before the Classical period, nominal predicates consisted of a copular particle followed by a noun phrase: The negated copula is attested in oracle bone inscriptions, and later fused as . In the Classical period, nominal predicates were constructed with the sentence-final particle instead of the copula , but was retained as the negative form, with which was optional: The copular verb (shì) of Literary and Modern Chinese dates from the Han period. In Old Chinese the word was a near demonstrative ('this').
|
|
In descriptions of the Japanese language, an adjectival noun, adjectival, or na-adjective is a noun that can function as an adjective by taking the particle 〜な -na. (In comparison, regular nouns can function adjectivally by taking the particle 〜の -no, which is analyzed as the genitive case.) Adjectival nouns constitute one of several Japanese word classes that can be considered equivalent to adjectives. In their attributive function, Japanese adjectival nouns function similarly to English noun adjuncts, as in "chicken soup" or "winter coat" – in these cases, the nouns "chicken" and "winter" modify the nouns "soup" and "coat", respectively. Japanese adjectival nouns can also be used predicatively – in that use, they do not take the -na suffix, but normally combine with forms of the copular verb.
|
|
Do-support (or do-insertion), in English grammar, is the use of the auxiliary verb do, including its inflected forms does and did, to form negated clauses and questions as well as other constructions in which subject–auxiliary inversion is required. The verb "do" can be used as an auxiliary even in simple declarative sentences, and it usually serves to add emphasis, as in "I did shut the fridge." However, in the negated and inverted clauses referred to above, it is used because the conventions of Modern English syntax permit these constructions only when an auxiliary is present. It is not idiomatic in Modern English to add the negating word not to a lexical verb with finite form; not can be added only to an auxiliary or copular verb.
|
|