Forms
In many languages the principal copula is a verb, such as English (to) be, German sein, French être, etc. This may inflect for grammatical categories such as tense, aspect and mood, like other verbs in the language. As a very commonly used verb, it is likely that the copula will have irregular inflected forms; this is the case in English, where the verb be has a number of highly irregular (suppletive) forms, and in fact has a larger number of 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. This is the case for Classical Chinese and Guarani, for instance. In highly synthetic languages, copulas are often suffixes, attached to a noun, that may still behave otherwise like ordinary verbs, for example -u- in Inuit languages. In some other languages, such as 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.
For cases where the copula is omitted or takes zero form, see Zero copula below.
Read more about this topic: Copula (linguistics)
Famous quotes containing the word forms:
“Let us say it now: to be blind and to be loved, is indeed, upon this earth where nothing is complete, one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)