Re: Copulas

> At 07:27 PM 3/9/99 -0800, JOEL MATTHEW PEARSON wrote:
> >So how do copular constructions work in other people's conlangs?
> >
> >Matt.
> >
>
> An interesting and complex question.  With one exception (the Indo-European,
> or perhaps Nostratic, conlang that I mentioned rather vaguely several months
> ago, which I'm still not ready to talk more specifically about), none of my
> conlangs has a single general-purpose copular verb corresponding closely to
> English "be".
>
> As I see it, "be" (and Indo-European copular verbs generally) have four
> distinct functions.  (And there may be others that I haven't thought of.)
> In other words, there are four different types of declarative sentence that
> all have the form "X is Y".  In all four types, X is a noun phrase, but Y is
> a different type of constituent in each of them.
I like Bateman's analysis ...
http://www.darmstadt.gmd.de/publish/komet/gen-um/node17.html
http://www.darmstadt.gmd.de/publish/komet/gen-um/node1.html