Information about Zero Copula

Zero copula is a linguistic phenomenon whereby the presence of the copula is implied, rather than stated explicitly as a verb or suffix. Malay/Indonesian, Turkish, Russian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Arabic, Luganda and Sinhala exhibit this phenomenon as a formal grammatical process. It is also found, to a lesser extent, in English, Japanese, and many other languages, used most frequently in rhetoric and casual speech.

In English

Standard English exhibits a very limited form of the zero copula, most common in statements like "The higher, the better", and casual questions like "You from out of town?". It's also witnessed in the exclamation "You the man!". However, the zero copula is not used productively in standard English.

The zero copula is far more productive in African American Vernacular English, some varieties of which regularly omit the copula. For instance, "You crazy!" or "She my sister". It is also found in questions, for example "Where you at?" and "Who she?".^[1] As in Russian, this is the case only in the present tense. In past-tense sentences, the copula must be specified. Although these speech patterns have not, as yet, had a significant effect on mainstream English, they are interesting for historical linguists, as they may predict future developments in English grammar.

The zero copula is also present, in a slightly different and more regular form, in the headlines of English newspapers, where short words and articles are generally omitted to conserve space. For example, a headline would more likely say "Gulf coast in ruins" than "Gulf coast is in ruins". Because headlines are generally simple A = B statements, an explicit copula is rarely necessary.

In other languages

Omission frequently depends on the tense and use of the copula.

Russian

In Russian the copula быть (byt') is normally omitted in the present tense, but not in the past tense:

Present (omitted):

• Она в доме (Ona v dome) = She is in the house, literally "She in house"

Past (used):

• Она была в доме (Ona byla v dome) = She was in the house

The third person plural "суть" (sut’) ("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):

• Они суть одно и то же (Oni sut’ odno i to zhe) — "they are one and the same".

The verb "быть" (byt’) is the infinitive of "to be". The third person singular, "есть" (yest’) means "is" (and, interestingly enough, it is a homophone of the infinitive "to eat"). As a copula, it can be inflected into the past ("был", byl), future ("будет", budet), and subjunctive ("был" or "бы", byl or by) forms. A present tense ("есть", yest’) exists; however, it is almost never used as a copula, but rather omitted altogether or replaced by the verb "являться" (yavlyat'sa) (to be in essence). Thus one can say:

• Она была красавицей (Ona byla krasavitsej) — "she was a beautiful woman" (adjective in instrumental case).
• Она красавица (Ona krasavitsa) — "she is a beautiful woman" (adjective in the nominative case).
• Она является красавицей (Ona yavlyayetsya krasavitsej) — "she is a beautiful woman" (adjective also in instrumental).

But not usually:

• Она есть красавица (Ona yest’ krasavitsa) — "she is a beautiful woman".

The present tense of the copula in Russian was in common use well into the 19th Century (as attested in the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky), but is used now only for archaic effect.

Irish

Further restrictions may apply before omission is permitted. For example in the Irish language, is, the present tense of the copula, may be omitted when the predicate is a noun. Ba the past/conditional cannot be deleted. If the present copula is omitted, the following pronoun é, í, iad preceding the noun is omitted as well.

Arabic

In Arabic, the use of the zero copula again depends on the context. In the present tense affirmative, the subject is simply juxtaposed with its predicate. When the subject is definite and the predicate indefinite, a pronoun (agreeing with the subject) must be inserted between the two. For example:

• محمد مهندس (Muħammad muhandis) = 'Muhammad is an engineer' (literally 'Muhammad an-engineer')
• محمد هو المهندس (Muħammad huwa al-muhandis) = 'Muhammad is the engineer' (literally 'Muhammad he the-engineer')

The extra pronoun is needed to prevent the adjective qualifying the noun attributively:

• محمد المهندس (Muħammad al-muhandis) = '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 kaana and laysa are used, which take the accusative case:

• كان محمد مهندسا (Kaana Muħammad muhandisan) = 'Muhammad was an engineer' (kaana = '(he) was') (literally 'he-was Muhammad an-engineer')
• ليس محمد مهندسا (Laysa Muħammad muhandisan) = 'Muhammad's not an engineer' (literally 'he-isn't Muhammad an-engineer'; the -an suffix marks the acusative)

When the copula is expressed with a verb, no pronoun need be inserted, regardless of the definiteness of the predicate:

• ليس محمد المهندسا (Laysa Muħammad al-muhandisan) = 'Muhammad's not the engineer' (literally 'he-isn't Muhammad the-engineer')

Luganda

The Luganda verb 'to be', -li is only used in two cases: when the predicate is a prepositional phrase, and when the subject is a pronoun and the predicate is an adjective:

• Ali mulungi 'She's beautiful' (ali = '(he/she) is')
• Kintu ali mu emmotoka 'Kintu is in the car' (literally 'Kintu he-is in-car')

Otherwise the zero copula is used:

• Omuwala mulungi 'The girl is beautiful' (literally 'the-girl beautiful')

Here the word mulungi 'beautiful' is missing its initial vowel pre-prefix o-. If included, it would make the adjective qualify the noun omuwala attributively:

• Omuwala omulungi '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 '[name my]^TOPIC P-E-T-E'.

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.

Notes

Literature

• Wolfram, Walter (1969) A Sociolinguistic Description of Detroit Negro Speech. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics p.165-179