Copula

Abstract

Copulas and copular clauses are interesting for a variety of reasons: morphological, syntactic, semantic, historical, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic ones. It is thus not surprising that they have inspired (and continue to inspire) a lot of research and have been at the core of quite a few debates in linguistic literature. This introduction outlines the core questions surrounding copulas and copula constructions. Perhaps the most fundamental one concerns the taxonomy of copula elements: how many copula elements do we need to posit? The question arises both for languages with one copula and multiple copulas. In the former case, it simply becomes a question about the ambiguity of this single copula. Related to this question is the question concerning types of copular clauses and the relationship between them. For example, is the copula used in predicational copular clauses (e.g., Mary is smart/a student/at home) the same as the copula used in specificational (e.g., The best student is Mary), identity (e.g., Dr. Jekyll is Mr. Hyde), or existential clauses (e.g., There is a book on the table). We might also wonder about other types of copular clauses, such as identificational copular clauses (e.g., That man is John) or various types of clefts constructions. Another important question concerns the structure of copular constructions. If there are different types of copulas or different types copular constructions, the question is whether these different types involve distinct structures, are related via movement, or involve different copulas. This relates to the semantic contribution of the copula itself; some sources treat it as a grammatical formative or linker, while others endow it with more semantic prowess and derive the differences between different copular sentences from the ambiguity of the copula itself. The existence of languages and dialects with multiple copulas (verbal copulas, so-called pronominal copulas or zero copulas) adds plausibility to the latter view. For these types, the factors that determine the choice between the various forms of the copula are also a fruitful venue for research.