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This is a non-exhaustive list of copulae in the English language, i.e. words used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (a subject complement). Because many of these copulative verbs may be used non-copulatively, examples are provided. Also, there can be other copulative verbs depending on the context and the meaning of the ...
A copula is often a verb or a verb-like word, though this is not universally the case. [3] 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.
Linking verbs include copulas such as the English verb be and its various forms, as well as verbs of perception such as look, sound, or taste and some other verbs that describe the subject, such as seem, become, or remain. [1]
Copular verbs (a.k.a. linking verbs) include be, seem, become, appear, look, and remain. For example: "Her daughter was a writing tutor." "The singers were very nervous." "His mother looked worried." "Josh remained a reliable friend." These verbs precede nouns or adjectives in a sentence, which become predicate nouns and predicate adjectives. [5]
The copula verb be has a larger number of different inflected forms, and is highly irregular. Although many of the most commonly used verbs in English (and almost all the irregular verbs) come from Old English, many others are taken from Latin or French.
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.
Because a copula is an intransitive verb, subject complements are not customarily construed to be the object of the verb. They are often deemed to be neither arguments nor adjuncts of a predicate. A plural or singular subject, rather than a subject complement determines the grammatical number expressed by a copula. [2] [3]
Therefore, in a verb phrase, the head is always a verb. [5] Again, nominal sentences like ʾanā saʿīd do not have a verb, so the verb head position in the verb phrase cannot be filled. Having a zero copula is one way to solve the problems listed above without compromising the existing syntactic theory. The verb is present, just covertly as ...