Copula

Definition: Copula

Copula

Noun

1. An equating verb (such as `be' or `become') that links the subject with the complement of a sentence.

Date "copula" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1781. (references)

Etymology: Copula \Cop"u*la\, noun. [Latin expression, bond, band. See Couple.]. (Websters 1913)

Synonyms: Copula

Synonyms: copulative (n), linking verb (n). (additional references)

In linguistics, a copula (also sometimes called a linking verb, most often in primary education grammar courses) is a word that is used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (a subject complement or an adverbial). Though it might not itself express any action or condition, it serves to associate the subject with a predicate that could not stand by itself.

For example, in the sentence "Bob runs", the predicate "run" is already a verb, so it can be used by itself. In the sentences "Bob is old" and "Bob is a fireman", however, the predicates are an adjective and a noun, so the linking verb "is" (a form of be, the usual copula in English) serves to associate them with Bob.

In English, even the normal present tense of verbs is expressed more commonly with the copulative form "Bob is running", [this is not a copula--it is an auxiliary verb.] while other tenses are expressed without it ("Bob ran"), or with the use of other helper verbs ("Bob will run").

English copulas are:

to be
to get
to seem
to become
(and more)

Some languages use copulas differently, so a sentence like "Bob old" would be a complete and grammatical expression. In Chinese the copula for a noun + adjective combination must be an adverb of degree, e.g. "Bobu hen lao", which translates literally as "Bob very old", or "Bobu bu lao" translating as "Bob not old" (but not "Bobu lao" or Bob old). There are still many other languages e.g. Russian or Hungarian where nouns don't have a copula between them (Russian: "ja chelovek" - I'm a man/human -, Hungarian: ö ember" - he is a man/human). The artificial language Lojban has no copula at all, because all words that express a predicate can be used as verbs. The three sentences above would all have the same form in Lojban: "la bob. bajra", "la bob. tolcitno", and "la bob. fagdirpre". Some languages also have more than one copula for different uses; for example Spanish uses the verb "ser" to link a subject to a predicate that specifies an identity or inherent quality ("Bob is old" would be "Bob es viejo"), and the verb "estar" to link predicates that specify a temporary condition ("Bob is here" would be "Bob está aquí"). Italian does it the same way ("Roberto è vecchio"/"Roberto sta qui"), and Hungarian only uses a copula in the latter case with regard to 3rd person (sg/pl) (Róbert van itt"), but not in the 1st example ("Róbert öreg"). This is to relate a subject to a more temporary condition/state taking place in *space* (very often in the sense of Lojban "zvati").

It should be pointed out that the English verb be can also be used as a standalone predicate when it is used to express mere existence. "I am" is a complete sentence meaning "I exist", and in this case "am" is not a copula but a normal, meaningful verb.

See also: E-Prime, a variant of English without the "is" copula.

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Connection	Noun: vinculum, link; connective, connection; junction; bond of union, copula, hyphen, intermedium; bracket; bridge, stepping-stone, isthmus.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Copula

English words defined with "copula": copular ♦ predicate ♦ stand ♦ To let be. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Copula" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses.

Italian (copula), Latin (bond, connection, couple, girdle, tie).

Domain	Title
Books	Predicative adjectives with the copula byt� in modern russian (reference) The Japanese Copula (reference) Wackernagel's law and the placement of the copula esse in classical Latin (reference) (more book examples)

Music	Copula Mundi [IMPORT] (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Male and female Schistosoma mansoni in copula, transverse section. Indirect fluorescent antibody stain. Parasite. Credit: CDC.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

"Copula" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 87.50% of the time. "Copula" is used about 8 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	87.5%	7	133,076
Noun (proper)	12.5%	1	339,140
Total	100.00%	8	N/A

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "copula"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		këpujë. (various references)

Arabic		‏عظم رابط, ‏صلة (communication, connection, connexion, link, linkage, rapport, reference, relation, relationship, tie, touch), ‏الفعل الرابط, ‏رابط (attachment, camp, conjunctive, connective, copulative, couple, give voice to). (various references)

Bulgarian		спомагателен глагол (auxiliary), копула, връзка (alliance, association, bond, bunch, cement, channel, communication, concatenation, connection, connexion, contact, cord, coupler, intercommunication, lace, leverage, liaison, ligament, ligature, link, nexus, noose, overlay, point, reference, regard, relation, relationship, relevance, relevancy, string, tie, touch). (various references)

Chinese		系动词. (various references)

Czech		spona (brace, buckle, clasp, hasp). (various references)

Farsi		مفصل (Ample, Copious, Hinge, Joint, Juncture, Spacious, Voluminous), وسیله اتصال , عضورابط. (various references)

French		copule. (various references)

German		kopula. (various references)

Greek		συνδετικό ρήμα. (various references)

Hungarian		kapcsolószó (copulae). (various references)

Indonesian		kata kerja penghubung. (various references)

Italian		copula (coitus, concubitus). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		連辞 , 繋辞 , て拳�" (detective, Don't you agree?, event, guess, has become possible, hope, huge, huge breasts, I fear, I hope, I think, I thought you'd say that!, in a big way, is now possible, it seems, may, polite copula in Japanese, probably, surely, Tae Kwon Do, therefore, think, to be, will). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		で�"ざいます , れ�"じ (latticework), けいじ (apocalypse, auspicious event, bulletin, clocking, criminal case, defer to another as if an older brother, detective, notice, revelation, timing). (various references)

Korean		계합사. (various references)

Pig Latin		opulacay

Portuguese		cópula (coupling). (various references)

Russian		антитело (antibody, fixative), амбоцептор, противотело. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		veznik (conjunction, connective), veza (bond, bracing, bunch, clip, communication, connection, contact, fastener, fastening, liaison, ligament, link, nexus, rapport, relation, stay, tie, touch, union), spona (bond, clamp, conjunction, fastener, join, link, link-verb, nexus), kopula (link-verb). (various references)

Spanish		cópula (copulation). (various references)

Turkish		koşaç (copulative), birleştirici yapı, bağ (alliance, bandage, beginnings, binder, bond, brace, connection, connexion, copulation, cord, corelate, daughter, desmo-, fascia, fastener, fastening, header, knot, lace, league, ligament, ligature, link, linkage, linkup, nexus, noose, relation, relationship, string, tie, tie up, truss, vinculum, vine, vineyard, yoke). (various references)

Ukrainian		зв'язка (chord, cord, ligament), парування (tread). (various references)

Vietnamese		dây chằng. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "copula": copulae, copular, copulas, copulate, copulated, copulates, copulating, copulation, copulations, copulative, copulatives, copulatory. (additional references)
	Words ending with "copula": scopula. (additional references)
	Words containing "copula": postcopulatory, precopulatory, scopulae, scopulas. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Copula" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Acapella, Capela, Capili, capilla, Cepilux, Cobella, Codul, compla, comul, copale, copalla, Copella, copile, Copilia, Copolla, Coppelia, coppola, copule, copulu, couglan, coupla, coupl'a, cropful, cupella, cupoula, cupula, Kapula, Kopelev, Serpula. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Words rhyming with "copula" (pronounced 'Cop"u*la'): Acanthocephala, Acicula, Actinula, Ala, Algarovilla, Alula, Ametabola, Ampulla, Amygdala, Angola, Anopla, Aquila, Archencephala, Archiblastula, Areola, Armilla, Arolla, Artiodactyla, Auricula, Axilla, Baggala, Bandala, Banderilla, Barilla, bengola, Beteela, Blastula, Bulla, Cabala, Cabrilla, Caffila, Calcavella, Calendula, Calla, Camarilla, Campanula, Canella, Cannicula, Cannula, Capella, Capitula, Cappella, Carambola, Cedilla, Cella, Chinchilla, Chrysocolla, Cicala, Claribella, Coccinella. (additional references)

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Direct Anagrams: cupola.
	Words within the letters "a-c-l-o-p-u"
	-1 letter: copal, culpa.
	-2 letters: calo, capo, caul, clap, clop, coal, cola, coup, loca, loup, opal, pula.
	-3 letters: alp, cap, col, cop, cup, lac, lap, lop, oca, pac, pal, pol, pul, upo.
	-4 letters: al, la, lo, op, pa, up.
	Words containing the letters "a-c-l-o-p-u"
	+1 letter: copulae, copular, copulas, cupolas, scopula.
	+2 letters: copulate, cupolaed, opercula, opuscula, pachouli, populace, procural, scopulae, scopulas.
	+3 letters: cantaloup, copulated, copulates, crapulous, cupolaing, opercular, pachoulis, patchouli, patchouly, peculator, plutocrat, populaces, portulaca, procurals.
	+4 letters: acephalous, cantaloupe, cantaloups, captiously, cloudscape, computable, conceptual, copulating, copulation, copulative, copulatory, duplicator, eucalyptol, leucoplast, operculars, operculate, patchoulis, peculation, peculators, pelycosaur, plutocracy, plutocrats, portulacas, postlaunch, postulancy, procedural, procurable, pronuclear, recoupable, spaciously, speculator.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

Expression	Frequency per Day
copula	69
apareamiento atlas copula mamiferos reproduccion	3
copula function	2
copula geodesica	2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Copula

Definition: Copula

Copula

Noun

Synonyms: Copula

Specialty Definition: Copula

Synonyms within Context: Copula

Connection

Crosswords: Copula

Commercial Usage: Copula

Books

Music

Photo Album: Copula

Usage Frequency: Copula

Frequency of Internet Keywords: Copula

copula

apareamiento atlas copula mamiferos reproduccion

copula function

copula geodesica

Modern Translation: Copula

Albanian

Arabic

Bulgarian

Chinese

Czech

Farsi

French

German

Greek

Hungarian

Indonesian

Italian

Japanese Kanji

Japanese Katakana

Korean

Pig Latin

Portuguese

Russian

Serbo-Croatian

Spanish

Turkish

Ukrainian

Vietnamese

Derivations & Misspellings: Copula

Derivations

Misspellings

Rhyming with "Copula"

Anagrams: Copula

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

INDEX