Indo-European copula

A feature common to all Indo-European languages is the presence of a verb corresponding to the English verb to be.

General features

Main article: copula

This verb has two basic meanings. In a less marked context it is a simple copula (I'm tired; That's a shame!), a function which in non-Indo-European languages can be expressed quite differently. In a more heavily marked context it expresses existence (I think therefore I am); the dividing line between these is not always easy to draw. In addition, many Indo-European languages use this verb as an auxiliary for the formation of compound (periphrastic) tenses (I'm working; I was bitten). Other functions vary from language to language. For example, although in its basic meanings, to be is a stative verb, English puts it to work as a dynamic verb in fixed collocations (You are being very annoying).

The copula is the most irregular verb in many Indo-European languages. This is partly because it is more frequently used than any other, and partly because Proto-Indo-European offered more than one verb suitable for use in these functions, with the result that the daughter languages, in different ways, have tended to form suppletive verb paradigms. This article describes the way in which the irregular forms have developed from a series of roots.

The Proto-Indo-European roots

*h₁es-

The root *h₁es- was certainly already a copula in Proto-Indo-European. The e-grade (see Indo-European ablaut) is found in such forms as English is, Latin est, while the zero grade produces forms beginning with /s/, German sind or French sommes. In PIE, *h₁es- was an athematic verb in -mi, that is, the first person singular was *h₁esmi; this inflection survives in English am, Sanskrit asmi, Old Church Slavonic , etc.

The present indicative of this verb is generally reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European thus:

Person	Singular! Plural
1	*h1és-mi	*h1s-més
2	*h1és-si (already in PIE reduced to *h1ési)	*h1s-th1é
3	*h1és-ti	*h1s-énti

*b^huH-

The root *b^huH- (where H stands for a laryngeal of unknown quality) probably meant "to grow", but also "to become". This is the source of the English infinitive be and participle been (Germanic participles have the suffix in -an), as well as, for example, the Scottish Gaelic future tense bithidh. PIE /b^h/ becomes Latin /f/, hence the Latin future participle futūrus and perfect tense fuī; Latin fiō 'I become' is also from this root, as is the Greek verb , from which physics and physical are derived. Jasanoff (2003: 112) reconstructs the present indicative of this verb as follows:

Person	Singular!Plural
1	*bhúH-i-h2e(i)	*bhuH-i-mé-
2	*bhúH-i-th2e(i)	*bhuH-i-(t)é-
3	*bhúH-y-e	*bhuH-y-énti

*wes-

The root *wes- may originally have meant "to live". The e-grade is present in the German participle gewesen, the o-grade (*wos-) survives in English and Old High German was, while the lengthened e-grade (*w�"s-) gives us English were. (The Germanic forms with /r/ result from grammatischer Wechsel.) See Germanic strong verb: Class 4.

*h₁er-

The root *h₁er- meant "to move". This is probably the origin of the Old Norse and later Scandinavian languages' present stem: Old Norse em, ert, er, erum, eruð, eru; the second person forms of which were borrowed into English as art and are. Older authorities linked these forms with *h₁es- and assumed grammatischer Wechsel (/s/�'/r/), which however would be difficult to explain in the present stem.

*steh₂-

The root *steh₂- survives in English with its original meaning: "to stand". From this root comes the present stem of the so-called "substantive verb" in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, tá and tha respectively. In Latin, stō, stare retained the meaning "to stand", until local forms of Vulgar Latin began to use it as a copula in certain circumstances. Today, this survives in that several Romance languages use it as one of their two copulae, and there is also a Romance tendency for a past participle derived from *steh₂- to replace that of the main copula.

The resulting paradigms

Hittite

The Hittite verb "to be" is derived from the Indo-European root *.

	Present indicative	Preterite indicative	Imperative
1st sg.	�"šmi	ešun	�"šlit �"šlut ašallu
2nd sg.	�"šši	�"šta	�"š
3rd sg.	�"šzi	�"šta	�"šdu
1st pl.	(ašweni)	�"šwen	�"�"
2nd pl.	�"šteni	�"šten	�"šten
3rd pl.	ašanzi	ešer	ašandu

Germanic languages

Main article: Germanic verb

Old Norse	Danish	Old English		English	Old High German	German	Dutch! Gothic
Infinitive	vera	være	wesan	b�"on	be	wesan	sein	zijn	wisan
Present	em ert (est) er (es) erum eruð eru	er	eom eart is sint sint sint	b�"o bist biþ b�"oþ b�"oþ b�"oþ	am art is are are are	bim bis(t) ist birum birut sint	bin bist ist sind seid sind	ben bent is zijn zijn zijn	im is ist sijum sijuþ sind
Subjunctive	siá sér sé sém séð sé	være (extremely rare)	sīe sīe sīe sīen sīen sīen	b�"o b�"o b�"o b�"on b�"on b�"on	be (very rare)	sî sîs(t) sî sîm sî(n)t sîn	sei seist sei seien seid seien	zij zijn (very rare)	sijais sijai sijaima sijaiþ sijaina>-	Preterite	var várum	var	wæs wǽre wæs wǽron wǽron wǽron		was wast was were were were	was wâri was wârum wârut wârun	war warst war waren wart waren	was waren	was wast was wesum wesuþ wesun
Past participle	verit	været	——		been	——	gewesen	geweest	——

Old English kept the verbs wesan and b�"on separate throughout the present stem, though it is not clear that they made the kind of consistent distinction in usage that we find, for example in Spanish. In the preterite, however, the paradigms fell together. Old English has no participle for this verb.

Latin and Romance languages

| Future| Past participle
/ supine

Latin		(Old) French		Spanish		Italian		Portuguese
Infinitive	esse	stare	être	ester	ser	estar	essere	stare	ser	estar
Present tense	sum es est sumus estis sunt	sto stas stat stamus statis stant	suis es est sommes êtes sont	este estes este estons estez estent	soy eres es somos sois son	estoy estás está estamos estáis están	sono sei è siamo siete sono	sto stai sta stiamo state stanno	sou és é somos sois são	estás está estamos estais estão>-	Subjunctive	sim	stet	sois	este	sea	esté	sia	stia	seja	-	Perfect / Simple past	fui	steti	fus	estai	fui	estuve	fui	stetti	fui	estive
Imperfect	eram	stabam	étais	estais	era	estaba	ero	stavo	era	estava
ero	stabo	serai	esterai	seré	estaré	sarò	starò	serei	estarei
n/a	statum	été (borrowed)	esté	sido	estado	stato (borrowed)	stato	sido	estado

Main article: Romance copula

In several modern Romance languages, the perfect is a composite tense formed with the participle as in English, but the old Latin perfect survives as a commonly-used preterite in Spanish and Portuguese, and as a literary "past historical" in French, Italian and Catalan.

In Spanish, Catalan, Galician-Portuguese (and, to a lesser extent, Italian) there are two parallel paradigms, ser/èsser/essere from Latin esse on one hand, and estar/stare from Latin stare, "to stand" on the other. The distinction between these is covered at Romance copula: Evolution of meaning.

There is a tendency for a past participle derived from stare (or more specifically its supine, statum) to replace that of the main copula derived from esse. For example, the French participle été comes from statum. Again, see: Romance copula: Evolution of meaning for greater detail.

The table to the right has five verbs fully conjugated in the present tense, plus the first-person singular forms of other tenses. See Romance copula: Conjugation for further data.

Balto-Slavic languages

Old Church Slavonic	Ukrainian	Russian	Polish! Serbo-Croatian Bosnian = Croatian = Serbian
Infinitive	byti	buty		być	biti
Present	esmь esi estь esmъ este sǫtъ	je je je je je je	(rare) (rare) (arch.) (arch.)	jestem jesteś jest jesteśmy jesteście są	jesam, sam jesi, si jest, je jesmo, smo jeste, ste jesu, su
Imperfect	�" �" běaše �" �" běaxǫ				bijah, bjeh/beh bijaše, bješe/beše bijaše, bješe/beše bijasmo, bjesmo/besmo bijaste, bjeste/beste bijahu, bjehu/behu
Imperfective aorist	běxъ bě bě běxomъ *běste běšę
Future	bǫdǫ bǫdeši bǫdetъ bǫdemъ bǫdete bǫdǫtъ	budu budeš bude(t′) budem(o) budete budut′		będę będziesz będzie będziemy będziecie będą	budem budeš bude budemo budete budu
Imperative	�" bǫdi bǫdi bǫděmъ bǫděte bǫdǫ	�" buvaj/bud′ �" buvajmo/bud′mo buvajte/bud′te �"	�" �" �"	�" bywaj/bądź �" bywajmy/bądźmy bywajcie/bądźcie �"	�" budi (neka bude) budimo budite (neka budu)
Perfective aorist	byxъ by(stъ) by(stъ) byxomъ byste byšę				bih bi bi bismo biste biše
Present participle	sy m. sǫšti f. sy n.	buvajučyj m. buvajuča f. buvajuče n.	m. f. n.	będący m. będąca f. będące n.	budući m. buduća f. buduće n.
Resultative participle	bylъ m. byla f. bylo n.
Past active participle	byvъ m. byvъši f. byvъ n.	buvšyj m. (‘former' adj.) buvša f. buvše n.	m. (‘former' adj.) f. n.
Past passive participle

Celtic languages

In the earliest Celtic languages there was a distinction between the so-called substantive verb, used when the predicate was an adjective phrase or prepositional phrase, and the so-called copula, used when the predicate was a noun. This contrast is maintained today in the Goidelic languages but has been lost in the Brythonic languages.

The conjugation of the Old Irish and Middle Welsh verbs is as follows:

	Old Irish substantive verb	Old Irish copula! Middle Welsh
Present	(at)·tó (at)·taí (at)·tá (at)·taam (at)·taïd (at)·taat	am at is ammi adib it	wyf wyt yw, mae, taw, oes ym ywch ynt, maen(t)
Preterite	·bá ·bá ·boí ·bámmar ·baid ·bátar	basa basa ba bommar unattested batar	buum buost bu buam buawch buant
Future	bia bie bieid, ·bia beimmi, ·biam bethe, ·bieid bieit, ·biat	be be bid bimmi unattested bit	bydaf bydy byd bydwn bydwch bydant

The forms of the Old Irish present tense of the substantive verb, as well as Welsh taw, come from the PIE root stā-. Welsh mae originally meant "here is" (cf. yma 'here'). The other forms are from the roots es- and bhū-.

In modern Gaelic, person inflections have almost disappeared, but the negative and interrogative are marked by distinctive forms. While some grammar books still distinguish the substantive verb from the copula, most treat the substantive forms as assertive forms of the copula;Colin Mark, Gaelic Verbs systemised and simplified, Savage (London & Edinburgh) 1986, p21ff. since the verb is in any case suppletive, this is a matter of perspective.

Scottish Gaelic	Irish
Present affirmative interrogative negative negative interrogative	tha a bheil chan eil nach eil	tá an bhfuil níl (ní fhuil) nach bhfuil
Assertive present	is
Past affirmative interrogative negative negative interogative	bha an robh cha robh nach robh	bhí an raibh ní raibh nach raibh
Assertive past	bu	ba
Future affirmative interogative negative negative interogative	bithidh am bi cha bhi nach bi	beidh an mbheidh ní bheidh nach mbeidh

Gaelic (bh)eil and Irish (bh)fuil are from Old Irish fil, originally an imperative meaning "see!" (PIE root *wel-, also in Welsh gweled, Germanic wlitu- "appearance", and Latin voltus "face"), then coming to mean "here is" (cf. French voici < vois ci and voilà < vois là), later becoming a suppletive dependent form of at-tá. Gaelic robh and Modern Irish raibh are from the perfective particle ro (ry in Welsh) plus ba (lenited after ro).

References

*http://www.gaeliccollege.edu/lessons/verbs/tha.html

See also

*List of common Indo-European roots

Rate this Article

Was this article helpful?

Not at all Definitely                  1 2 3 4 5