Omission frequently depends on the
tense and use of the copula.
Bengali In
Bengali (Bangla) zero copula is usually found in the
present tense when describing the state or adjectival properties of a subject, when alongside a prepositional phrase, or with the
adverb 'here' or 'there'. For example, in the sentence, • (
aamra ekhane, "We are here", literally "We (at) here"), the copula (
aachhi, "are/exist", first person conjugation) is omitted, and in • (
amar nam fatima, "My name is Fatima", literally "My name Fatima"), the possessive noun phrase and the name are always placed together.
Russian In
Russian the copula () is normally omitted in the
present tense, but not in the
past and
future tenses: Present (omitted): • (, literally "She at home"), i.e., "She
is now at home, in the house" Past (used): • (, "She
was at home") The third person plural (, "are") is still used in some standard phrases, but since it is a homonym of the noun "essence", most native speakers do not notice it to be a verb: • (, "they are one and the same"). The verb () is the infinitive of "to be". The third person singular, (), means "is". As a copula, it can be inflected into the past (, ), "future" (, ), and conditional (, ) forms. A present tense (, ) exists; however, it is almost never used as a copula, but rather omitted altogether or replaced by the verb (, "to be in essence"). Thus one can say: • (, "she was a beautiful woman")—predicate noun in
instrumental case. • (, "she is a beautiful woman")—predicate noun in the
nominative case. • (, "she is a beautiful woman")—predicate noun also in instrumental. But not usually: • (, "she is a beautiful woman"), which would be very formal and would suggest something more than a copula, something more existential than the normal English use of "is". As a result, this construction is quite rare. But in some cases the verb in the present tense (form ) is employed: (Be who you are). The present tense of the copula in Russian was in common use well into the 19th century (as attested in the works of
Fyodor Dostoyevsky) but is now used only for
archaic effect (analogous to "
thou art" in English).
Turkic languages There is a contrast between the regular verb "to be" () and the copulative/auxiliary verb "to be" () in
Turkish. The auxiliary verb shows its existence only through suffixes to predicates that can be nouns, adjectives or arguably conjugated verb stems, arguably being the only
irregular verb in Turkish. In the third person, zero copula is the rule, as in Hungarian or Russian. For example: : The
essential copula is possible in the third person singular: : In
Tatar, expresses doubt rather than a characteristic. The origin of is the verb , with a similar meaning to the Latin . In the modern Tatar language copula is a disappearing grammatical phenomenon and is only rarely used with the first and second person (while the third person copula has fallen completely out of use). In the past there was a full paradigm for all persons: : For example: (, "I'm a teacher"), (, "You're a teacher"), (, "He/She's a teacher"). While the copulas for the first and second person are historically derived from personal pronouns, the third person copula comes from the verb (, "stand, live, exist"). For negation the copula affix is attached to the negative particle (): (, "I'm not a writer"). The copula is only used with nouns. Sometimes the noun can be in the locative case: (, "You are at home").
Japanese In
Japanese, the copula is not used with predicative adjectives, such as . It is sometimes omitted with predicative nouns and adjectival nouns in non-past tense, such as , but is necessary for marking past tense or negation, as in . It is also sometimes omitted in wh-questions, such as .
Māori 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) — , literally "a big the house", "the house (is) big"; , literally "at (past locative particle) the table the book", "the book (was) on the table"; , literally "from England (s)he", "(s)he (is) from England"; , literally "at the (act of) eating I", "I (am) eating"
Arabic In
Arabic, a
Semitic language, the use of the zero copula again depends on the context. In the present tense affirmative, when the subject is
definite and the predicate is
indefinite, the subject is simply juxtaposed with its predicate. When both the subject and the predicate are
definite, a
pronoun (
agreeing with the subject) may be inserted between the two. For example: • (), "Muhammad is an engineer" (lit. "Muhammad an-engineer") • (), "Muhammad is the engineer" (lit. "Muhammad he the-engineer") The extra pronoun is highly recommended in order for one not to confuse the predicate for a qualifying adjective: • (), "Muhammad the engineer" (This is just a
noun phrase with no copula. See
al- for more on the use of definite and indefinite nouns in Arabic and how it affects the copula.) In the past tense, however, or in the present tense negative, the verbs and are used, which take the
accusative case: • (), "Muhammad was an engineer" ( = "(he) was") (literally "be it Muhammad an-engineer") • (), "Muhammad is not an engineer" (lit. "Muhammad is not an-engineer") When the copula is expressed with a verb, no pronoun need be inserted, regardless of the definiteness of the predicate: • (), "Muhammad is not the engineer" (lit. "Muhammad is not of the-engineer")
Hebrew, another
Semitic language, uses zero copula in a very similar way.
Ganda The
Ganda verb "to be", , is used in only two cases: when the predicate is a prepositional phrase and when the subject is a pronoun and the predicate is an adjective: • , "She is beautiful" (, "(he/she) is") • , "Kintu is in the car" (literally "Kintu he-is in-car") Otherwise, the zero copula is used: • , "The girl is beautiful" (literally "the-girl beautiful") Here the word , "beautiful" is missing its initial vowel pre-prefix . If included, it would make the adjective qualify the noun
attributively: • , "The beautiful girl" or "a beautiful girl".
American Sign Language American Sign Language does not have a copula. For example, "my hair is wet" is signed
my hair wet, and "my name is Pete" may be signed
[MY NAME]topic P-E-T-E.
Irish The copula is used in Irish but may be omitted in the present tense. For example, ("He is a big man") can be expressed as simply . The common phrase (meaning "anyhow", lit. "Whatever story it [is]") also omits the copula.
Welsh Since
Welsh often requires the use of a predicative
particle to denote non-definite
predicate, the copula can be omitted in certain phrases. For example, the phrase ("Since he is/was/etc. a short man...") literally translates as "And he [particle] a short man...". The zero copula is especially common in Welsh poetry of the style.
Amerindian languages Nahuatl, as well as some other
Amerindian languages, has no copula. Instead of using a copula, it is possible to
conjugate nouns or adjectives like verbs. Grammarians and other comparative linguists, however,
do not consider this to constitute a zero copula but rather an
affixal copula. Affixal copulae are not unique to Amerindian languages but can be found, for instance, in
Korean and in the
Eskimo languages. Many indigenous languages of South America do, however, have true zero copulae in which no overt free
or bound
morpheme is present when one noun is equated with another. In fact, zero-copula is likely to occur in third-person contexts in Southern Quechua (notice
wasiqa hatunmi 'the house is big' vs.
wasiqa hatunmi kan 'the house is big', where
kan, the Quechua copula, is not really needed, as suggested by the first sentence). Yaghan, from Tierra del Fuego, used, in its heyday back in the mid-19th century, zero copula as one option, when introducing new participants in discourse, but had a slew of posture-based copular verbs for all other contexts. So I could say, kvnji-u:a Jon (lit. 'this man IS John'(zero copula). kvnji 'this', u:a 'man' (v here is schwa, and colon marks tenseness of the vowel preceding it), but once John has been introduced I might say, Jon lvpatvx-wvshta:gu:a mu:ta 'John is a woodworker', lvpatvx 'wood' (x voiceless velar fricative), wvshta:gu: 'work' u:a 'man', mu:ta irregular present tense form of mu:tu: 'to be (sitting) (or occupied doing)'
Chinese Modern Standard Chinese, as well as many other
Chinese dialects, uses a copula, such as the Mandarin word
shì (), before nouns in predications, like in
Wŏ shì Zhōngguó rén ( / I
am Chinese), but not usually before verbs or adjectives. For example, saying
Wǒ shì kāixīn ( / I
am happy) is a grammatically incorrect sentence, but saying
Wǒ kāixīn ( / I happy), is correct. Adverbs can be added to the adjective, like in
Wǒ hĕn kāixīn ( / I
very happy). A copula may be used for adjectives, however, if the particle
de () is added after the adjective, like in
Wǒ shì kāixīn de ().
Vietnamese Somewhat similar to Chinese, the
Vietnamese language requires the copula before nouns in
predications but does not use a copula before verbs or adjectives, thus (I am a student) but (I [am] smart). The topic marker may appear before an adjective to emphasize the subject, for example (As for me, I am smart). Many prepositions in Vietnamese originated as verbs and continue to function as verbs in sentences that would use a copula in English. For example, in (I am at home), the word may be analyzed as either "to be at" or simply "at". Sometimes, attributive adjectives may follow the verb
có (to have), thus
Tôi (có) cao is a feasible sentence. ==See also==