Talk:Indo-European copula/Archive 1

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Slavic

I compiled some information on Ukrainian language (an Eastern Slavic language) with the help of the notes on grammar in my English/Ukrainian dictionary. I'm no grammar expert, so there may be errors. —Michael Z. 2005-05-23 05:39 Z

	Ukrainian
Infinitive "to be"	бути buty
Present "I am"	є je є є є є є
Present continuous "I am being"	буваю buvaju буваєш buvaješ буває buvaje буваєм(о) buvajem(o) буваєте buvajete бувають buvajut′
Conditional (Subjunctive, formed by adding particle би or б to past) "I would be"	був би buv by/була би bula by (m./f.) був би/була би був би/була би/було би bulo by (m./f./n.) були би buly by були би були би
Future "I will be"	буду budu будеш budeš буде(ть) bude(t′) будем(о) budem(o) будете budete будуть budut′
Future imperfect "I will be being"	бутиму butymu бутимеш butymeš бутиме butyme бутимемо butymemo бутимете butymete бутимуть butymut′
Past Participle	?
Past "I was"	був buv/була bula (m./f.) був/була був/була/було bulo (m./f./n.) були buly були були
Past imperfect "I was being"	бував buvav/бувала buvala бував/бувала бував/бувала/бувало buvalo бували buvaly бували бували
Imperative (imperfect/perfect) "be being!/be!"	- бувай! buvaj/будь! bud′ - буваймо! buvajmo/будьмо! bud′mo бувайте! buvajte/будьте! bud′te -
Present perfective various prefixes indicating completion change the meaning and create new verbs	відбути vidbuty ("to accomplish/to attend"), перебути perebuty ("to remain/to suffer"), добути dobuty ("to gain [weight]"), здобути zdobuty ("to acquire"), набути nabuty ("to accumulate"), збути zbuty ("to get rid of"), забути zabuty ("to forget")
Present active participle "being" adj.	буваючий buvajučyj m./буваюча buvajuča f./буваюче buvajuče n.
Present passive participle	?
Past active participle	?
Past passive participle "had been being" adj.	бувший buvšyj m./бувша buvša f./бувше buvše n. ("former" adj.)
Present gerund "(while) being"	буваючи buvajučy
Past gerund "having been"	бувши buvšy

Similar to the Latin futurus are the Ukrainian words будучина (budučyna) and майбутність (majbutnist′), both meaning "the future", and both incorporating the root of to be (бути, buty).

Ukrainian also has the verb стати (staty), meaning "to stand" or "to become". Adding the suffix -sja, meaning "onesself", makes the verb статися (statysja), "to happen". —Michael Z. 2005-05-23 05:53 Z

Michael, thanks for coming over to help so quickly. This is very interesting, and generally more regular than the Germanic and Romance languages. Looks like the present stem is from *es- and the rest is from *bheu-. This article can't go into as much detail of the derived forms as you have given here, but we will certainly want to note how the suppletion works. Do you know anything about Russian? Old Church Slavonic would be good. Perhaps Polish? --Doric Loon 06:12, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Just thought I'd fill in everything I could. Feel free to just include what's most relevant, change the order and format, etc. It might also be interesting to include more information about staty, which I think must come from *sta-.

I'm afraid I don't really know anything about those other languages. I'm not a linguist, just an interested Ukrainophone with a handy dictionary. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2005-05-23 06:44 Z

It just occurred to me that the present tense є (je) must indeed come from *es-, because there's an archaic and/or Slavonic form єсть (jest′). —Michael Z. 2005-05-23 06:50 Z

Doesn't Ukrainian have zero copula? -Iopq 18:38, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Title

Wikipedia article titles don't usually use quotation marks in them, and they are generally kept as short as possible. I suggest that the article be moved to something like Indo-European copula. We have other articles called Copula and Romance copula, not The verb "to be" and The verb "to be" in Romance languages. — Chameleon 16:11, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough, although in Celtic at least "copula" is used to mean one of the verbs translated "to be" and not the other one (which is called the "substantive verb"). --Angr/_comhrá 16:35, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

The verbs so labelled both seem to correspond to the copula in other languages. I think the page can be moved without problems. I shall do it tomorrow if nobody objects. — Chameleon 19:23, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

No objection! --Doric Loon 21:58, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

OCS symbols

Great to see so much input on the different branches. I think this will be a very interesting article precisely because of its potential breadth. I have a problem with the Old Church Slavonic table, though: there are various symbols which appear on my screen as a square. I have found this with other wiki pages where the IPA was being used. Is it a good idea to use symbols that cannot be read by all browsers? (Assuming that is the problem!) I'm using Internet Explorer 6.1 (2001). BTW, would those of you who know your way around the Slavonic field like to copy the above information on Ukranian (or the most relevant parts) into that table alongside OCS? --Doric Loon 21:58, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

The OCS in the article is actually transliterated using scientific transliteration, with the Cyrillic hard sign representing itself (this is a common convention). Do the characters show up for you in Template:Unicode: běxъ, bǫdeši, bǫdetъ? (I believe the Cyrillic Slavonic would look something like this: бѣхъ, бѫдєши, бѫдєтъ.)

In the Ukrainian table above, I've included everything in Cyrillic, with transliteration in italics (Ukrainian doesn't use the hard sign), although just using transliteration alone is probably appropriate for this article.

I'd love to copy the Ukrainian into the article, but I don't know enough about the grammar terminology to do it right (e.g., is "present perfective" the same as "perfective aorist"?). Maybe I'll start with the ones that are obvious to me. —Michael Z. 2005-05-25 15:30 Z

Yes, do it. I always feel I should go ahead with the thinks I know. Someone always corrects me if I blunder. (Usually Angr, bless him!) At any rate, whatever Angr has done, the squares have vanished and the table looks great. I wonder if it should be shortened, though; for present purposes we don't need ALL the inflections, and it is good if a table fits onto the screen. --Doric Loon 18:40, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

I added the {{Unicode}} template around the OCS words. But then MichaelZ. put the template right into the properties of the table. Either way, I'm glad it worked. --Angr/탉 18:51, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Two more languages

Here two other Indo-European languages for your collection :-) One Germanic, one Celtic.

	Dutch	Modern Welsh
Infinitive	zijn	bod
Present	ben bent is zijn zijn zijn	rydw rwyt mae rydyn rydych maen
Preternite	was was was waren waren waren	roeddwn roeddet roedd roedden roeddech roedden
Past Particle	geweest

--Fledermaus

Other Branches

Hmmm, I guess the Western/European languages are pretty well covered, but It'd be interesting to see examples from more distant languages, such as Classic and Modern Greek, Old Prussian(?), Lithuanian, Sanskrit, Avestan, Old Persian... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.232.72.148 (talk • contribs) 16:06, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

"distant", huh! Distant to what? deeptrivia (talk) 00:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Bulgarian

Bulgarian language has well preserved the copula from Old Church Slavonic both as a copula and an auxiliary verb (used in complex analytic verb tenses and passive voice).

Actually, there are three copulae, forming an aspect triple: imperfective съм, pervective бъда, secondary imperfective бивам. The last one is rarely used as a copula, but mainly in literary to form passive construction.

	Bulgarian			Usage notes
	Imperfective	Perfective	Secondary imperfective
Infinitive "to be"	*би	*биде	*бива	An infinitive as a stand-alone category is absent in Bulgarian language. What is said to be "infinitive" is actually the aorit form for 3rd persoon singular. It is used only in some "frozen" expressions. In the case of "съм" such expression is only "може би" may be
Present "I am"	съм си е сме сте са	бъда бъдеш бъде бъдем бъдете бъдат	бивам биваш бива биваме бивате биват	The present forms of the verb съм are enclitics. Their word order strictly follows the usual rule for second place of enclitics, e.g. Аз съм българин (I am [a] Bulgarian) versus Българин съм аз (lit. [A] Bulgarian am I)
Imperfect "I was"	бях бе, беше бе, беше бяхме бяхте бяха	бъдех бъдеше бъдеше бъдехме бъдехте бъдеха	бивах биваше биваше бивахме бивахте бивахте	Forms бе/беше are only stylistic variants. Form бе is rarely if ever used in oral language, it is mainly used in literature to avoid repetitive беше Form бъдех is an innovation in Bulgarian. In appeared when the imperfect tense started being formed from the present stem (e.g. берях), not from the preterite stem (cf. OCS bьraaxъ)
Aorist "I was"	бих би би бихме бихте биха	бидох биде биде бидохме бидохте бидоха	бивах биваше биваше бивахме бивахте бивахте	The aorist forms *бих/би, etc. are not used as a copula in Modern Bulgarian. They only function as an auxiliary to form the conditional mood (e.g. Аз бих ял I would eat)
Imperative "Be!"		бъди бъдете	бивай бивайте
Present active participle "Be!"	същ съща също същи	бъдещ бъдеща бъдещо бъдещи	биващ биваща биващо биващи	Although the forms същ and бъдещ descend directly from the corresponding OCS forms sy/sǫštьi and bǫdy/bǫdǫštьi, in Modern Bulgarian they do not function as participles. 'Същ' functions as a regular adjective meaning '[the] same', as well as бъдещ meaning 'future'; а neuter form бъдеще (somewhat different from бъдещо) means 'a future'
Imperfect active participle "been"		бъдел бъдела бъдело бъдели	бивал бивала бивало бивали	As normally, these are used only for non-attestative moods.
Perfect active participle "been"	бил била било били	бил била било били	бивал бивала бивало бивали
Past passive participle "been"	-	-	-
Gerund "being"	-	бъдейки/бидейки	бивайки

The forms of the copula have very high usage frequency. This is due to its overloaded usage as an auxiliary verb to form all resultative indicative tenses, all tenses of all non-attestative moods, as well as all tenses of the passive voice. Some verb tenses use the copula twice (e.g. бил съм четял, inveritative mood, present) or even three times (щял е бил да е чел, conclusive mood, resultative future-in-the-past tense, rarely used, but possible and used when needed).
On the other hand, zero copula is almost unknown fenomenon. Main exception is its omission in 3rd person, renarrative and inveritative forms (e.g. renarrative той четял, inveritative той бил четял vs. conslusive той е четял, as well as non-3rd person renarrative/conclusive аз съм четял, inveritative аз съм бил четял
--Gazibara 10:13, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Slavic transcription

Rather than leave some of the Russian examples in Cyrillic and some in transcription, I've added Russian to all the transliterated entries and transliterations to those in Russian. I wouldn't be offended if anyone deleted all the Russian text (leaving transliterations), but my personal ideal would be for all the Slavic examples to be written both in their own languages and in transliteration.

I also strongly disagree with the choice of č to transliterate щ, and would welcome a more accurate alternative. (Perhaps šč? Or ŝ, as per the ISO 9 system?) Tesseran 03:27, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree it should be šč. User:Angr 06:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I've finally made this change. Tesseran 01:23, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Old Irish

Can someone check the Old Irish table? I suspect (on the basis of my knowledge of the modern languages) that the terms copula and substantive verb should be the other way round. In modern Gaelic:

copula: tha mi sgith - I am tired (links NP to adjective etc)

substantiive (usually called assertive form: is e seo cat - this is a cat (links NP to NP)

So shouldn't OI tó be the copula and am the substantive? --Doric Loon 04:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I learned the names the way they are in the Old Irish table, and opposite of what you said for modern Scottish Gaelic. The copula links an NP to an NP, while the substantive verb links an NP to an AP, PP, etc. User:Angr 08:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Angr, I thought it might be you who answered. Well, if you're sure, then that's fine, but it doesn't quite tally with what I understood by the words; but presumably the distinctions will have shifted a lot between OI and the modern languages anyway. --Doric Loon 13:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Except that I learned the names for Modern Irish as the same of the words for Old Irish. So either the names have been switched for Scots Gaelic, or you've got them backwards. User:Angr 14:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeh, probably I was confused. --Doric Loon (talk) 18:47, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Note concerning the modern Scottish Gaelic verb forms in "-idh". Scottish Gaelic doesn't have a future tense marker, and these are not "future tense" verb forms, just forms that are _compatible with_ future time. See Macaulay "The Celtic Languages" (1992) for an authoritative analysis. The English term "future tense" has nevertheless been (mis)used in traditional grammar books for a long time. The Scottish Gaelic tense-aspect system in the modern language is much reduced compared with that of Old Irish and the old present and future forms are not preserved in their original roles.CecilWard (talk) 16:55, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

The terms "copula" (*is-) and "substantive verb" (*(s)ta-) have often been applied to these two verbs in the old and modern Goidelic languages. I don't see why one is less of a copula than another. In modern ScG "Tha Dia ann" (God exists/there is a God), "chan eil Dia ann" "there is no god", where the "tha" was called in traditional grammars the "substantive verb" and said not to be "_the_ copula".CecilWard (talk) 17:02, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure, for comparative purposes they both need to be drawn into the discussion. And remember that some of the text books treat them as different aspects of the same verb. --Doric Loon (talk) 18:47, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Wezen

Dutch still uses the verb 'wezen'. It has a rather peculiar function. Can anybody comment? (it also used as a noun meaning 'being(creature)' or 'orphans'

affirmative copula in Irish

In the Gaelic table, should the assertive present of the IG copula not be 'is' as well? (is maith liom, mar shampla) 159.134.221.48 16:39, 1 March 2007 (UTC)BRN

Swedish

Mind if I add Swedish to the Germanic table? Or is it too much having both Swedish, Danish and ON? – SmiddleT C @ 08:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd say so. The mother language is enough. Too many dughter languages would mainly attract clutter. For well attested mother languages, such asLatin, anskrit, Old Norse etc, one language is enough. 惑乱分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 00:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

*bhuH- section

The *bhuH- section claims to give a reconstructed "present indicative", but this paradigm shows clear Indo-European perfect-stem type endings. This should probably be rephrased in a clearer manner... AnonMoos 22:37, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Russian Present Forms

What is said to be Russian isn't really modern Russian, it's several centuries out-of-date. Actually, in modern Russian (just like in Ukrainian; and Belarusian, as well, by the way) this verb in Present Tense is usually omitted or есть is used for all Present forms.

Есмь, еси, есмы, есте are not used in modern language at all (well, you can encounter еси in fables, but it isn't modern language). I think all these should be marked archaic. Суть does, however, sometimes occur in modern text, but I think it's worth marking it a rare verb (суть as a noun 'essence' is widely used, but it's a different case).

So I suggest the following: есть, est'; есмь, esm' (arch.) есть, est'; еси, esi (arch.) есть, est' есть, est'; есмы, esmy (arch.) есть, est'; есте, este (arch.) есть, est'; суть, sut' (rare) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.21.43.222 (talk) 14:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Polish past tense

Polish is missing the past tense:

byłem/byłam byłeś/byłaś był/była/było byliśmy/byłyśmy byliście/byłyście byli/były

I think this is called the preterite but I'm not a linguist.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.112.94.230 (talk) 06:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

*h₁er-

I'm curious about this one. I'd always assumed that Germanic *er firms arose from rhotacization of *es. I would have thought art < *es- by a process similar to that of wert < *wes-. (Or is wert formed from were by analogy with art / are?) Koro Neil (talk) 14:23, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

That was my assumption too, until I looked into it, but I think Calvert Watkins will be right. But the article does mention both possibilities. --Doric Loon (talk) 21:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

bǫdǫ, буду, będę

Where does this Slavonic root fit in? The only link I can see with *b^huH- is the initial b-. And what about the Ukrainian infinitive buty (instead of *byty)? is this from *b^huH-, with the u resulting from analogy with the future forms? Koro Neil (talk) 14:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Confusion of Old and New

Can the tables please be revised to *clearly* state which language, and which phase of a language is being discussed? For example, the table gives 'art' as the second person singular verb in English. This is definitely not correct! The "Language" should say "Early New English" or something to that effect. Or make a note that it is no longer in use. The same happens with French. It says that the two verbs are from "old" French, but clearly the one on the right is New French. The conjugation given in the Romance Copulae page contradicts what is stated here. Please fix this. It's very confusing to be giving out archaic vocabulary to people!

Otherwise very nice article! :)

Retailmonica (talk) 23:22, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Art is still today the correct form of the verb be when the pronoun thou is used as the subject. The fact that we seldom use this pronoun is really beside the point. I can't imagine anyone who knows enough English to be able to read this article will be misled by that. It's good to be precise, but it's also good to avoid cluttering an article with detail which is off the point of what is being said. But if you think you can fix it neatly, go ahead. --Doric Loon (talk) 15:34, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

There are still a few pockets of people regularly using the thou/thee/thy forms as part of the language of prayer, with "art" as copula. Less than fifty years ago, it was still the usual form in prayer. The old form of the Lord's Prayer ("which art in heaven") is still occasionally used by people who otherwise use "you" in prayer. I'm guessing that there are British dialects which still retain the old 2nd singular in daily speech. Perhaps it should be marked in either case, but it's not quite obsolete. Koro Neil (talk) 08:15, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I think "who art in heaven" is probably still the most common phrasing of that part of the Lord's Prayer, at least in the churches I go to. —An gr 09:43, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd be interested to know where you live, and what churches you go to. I'm in New Zealand, and a lot of liturgy here is British in origin. The form I usually hear now is, "Our Father in heaven [no copula], hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come..." and so on. I would expect who/which art to be commoner in the States than in the Commonwealth. And there is likely a denominational component, or at least a theologically conservative/liberal component to the preferences. Koro Neil (talk) 11:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I grew up in various churches of the Episcopal Church (United States) and now go to an Anglican church in Germany that uses the liturgy of the Church of England. All of them, including the CofE church, use "who art in Heaven" (not "which art") even when the rest of the liturgy is in contemporary language. —An gr 11:37, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that. It was always "which art" here, and presumably in Britain as well; even as a child I found it strange. On the rare occasions when I hear it nowadays, it's still "which art". Sorry, I know this is getting off topic. Í don't know if there's any more to say on this, but feel free to respond on my talk page. Incidently, there is no copula in the original Greek of the Lord's prayer; "who art" is expressed by the definite article followed by the prepositional phrase – a common construction in Ancient Greek. Koro Neil (talk) 13:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Yup. But Latin uses "qui es", and I suspect the Lord's Prayer was translated into English from the Vulgate already before the Reformation. Did you say "in Earth as it is in Heaven" and "as we forgive them that trespass" too, rather than "on Earth" and "those who"? —An gr 14:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I understand Lancashire dialect still uses the 2nd person singular, albeit conventionally spelled “tha“ rather than “thou“. Also - people are even today forming new, non-dialect, sentences with “thou”, e.g. http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2011-01-01 (thought admittedly the meaning is imperative rather than specifically singular or intimate). Ewx (talk) 10:31, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Werest?

Is "werest" correct for the 2nd person singular preterite subjunctive? Surely it's "wert" as in Shelley's "Hail to thee blithe spirit, bird thou never wert"? --rossb (talk) 20:03, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I think you're right. In all of English Wikisource, "if thou wert" occurs 316 times, and "if thou werest" not once. The word "werest" never appears in the King James Bible or in Shakespeare, either. Shakespeare does have "if thou were" twice (versus "if thou wert" 17 times). —An gr 20:58, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Persian "bovad"

The stem "bash" as present tense (used as subjunctive) for "budan" is a relatively recent construction. The older form is "bov-" as in "bovam," "bovee," "bovad" etc. (cf. Bisotun Inscription "hamiçiya abava" "he became rebellious") —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.153.240.48 (talk) 17:47, 25 August 2009 (UTC)