Indo-European copula Totally Explained

Everything about Indo-european Copula totally explained

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

General features

This verb has two basic meanings. In a less marked context it's 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 isn't 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's 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, German ist, Latin est, while the zero grade produces forms beginning with /s/, like German sind, Latin sumus, Vedic Sanskrit smas, etc. 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 есмь (jesm'), 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, and the Slavic infinitive, etc. for example Russian быть [byt']. 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 φύω, from which physics and physical are derived. Jasanoff (2003: 112) reconstructs the present indicative of this verb as follows:

Person	Singular	Plural
1	*b^húH-i-h₂e(i)	*b^huH-i-mé-
2	*b^húH-i-th₂e(i)	*b^huH-i-(t)é-
3	*b^húH-y-e	*b^huH-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 (*wēs-) 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. Other authorities link these forms with *h₁es- and assume grammatischer Wechsel (/s/→/r/), although this is, to a degree, difficult to explain in the present stem.

*steh₂-

The root *(s)teh₂- 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's also a Romance tendency for a past participle derived from *steh₂- to replace that of the main copula. On the absence of the initial s- in Celtic, see Indo-European s-mobile.

The resulting paradigms

Hittite

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

	Present indicative	Preterite indicative	Imperative
1st sg.	ēšmi	ešun	ēšlit ēšlut ašallu
2nd sg.	ēšši	ēšta	ēš
3rd sg.	ēšzi	ēšta	ēšdu
1st pl.	(ašweni)	ēšwen	——
2nd pl.	ēšteni	ēšten	ēšten
3rd pl.	ašanzi	ešer	ašandu

Vedic Sanskrit

The Vedic Sanskrit verb as (to be) is derived from the Indo-European root *.

Person	Present, Indicative, Active
Person	Singular	Dual	Plural
1.	asmi	asvas	asmas
2.	asi	asthas	astha
3.	asti	astas	asanti

bhū - 'to be'

Person	Present, Indicative, Active
Person	Singular	Dual	Plural
1.	bhavāmi	bhavāvas(i)	bhavāmas(i)
2.	bhavasi	bhavathas	bhavatha
3.	bhavati	bhavatas	bhavanti

Ancient Greek

The Ancient Greek verb eimi (I am) is derived from the Indo-European root *.

	Present indicative
1st sg.	εἰμί (eimi)
2nd sg.	εἶ, εἶς, ἐσσί (ei,eis, essi)
3rd sg.	ἐστί(ν) (esti(n))
1st pl.	ἐσμέν, εἰμέν (esmen, eimen)
2nd pl.	ἐστέ (este)
3rd pl.	ἐντί, εἰσί(ν), enti, eisi(n)

Slavic languages

	Old Church Slavonic	Ukrainian	Russian	Polish	Bosnian / Croatian / Serbian	Bulgarian
Infinitive	byti	buty		być	biti
Present	esmĭ esi estĭ esmŭ este sǫtŭ	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	běxŭ bě bě běxomŭ *běste běšę
Future	bǫdǫ bǫdeši bǫdetŭ bǫdemŭ bǫdete bǫdǫtŭ	budu budeš bude(t′) budem(o) budete budut′		będę będziesz będzie będziemy będziecie będą	budem budeš bude budemo budete budu
Imperative	– bǫdi bǫdi bǫděmŭ 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	byxŭ by(stŭ) by(stŭ) byxomŭ 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	bylŭ m. byla f. bylo n.
Past active participle	byvŭ m. byvŭši f. byvŭ n.	buvšyj m. (‘former’ adj.) buvša f. buvše n.	m. (‘former’ adj.) f. n.

Italic languages

Except for Latin, the older Italic languages are very scarcely attested, but we've in Oscan set (they are), fiiet (they become), fufans (they have been) and fust (he will be), and in Umbrian sent (they are). This section will explain Latin, and the Romance languages that have evolved from it.
In Spanish, Catalan, Galician-Portuguese and to a lesser extent, Italian there are two parallel paradigms, ser/èsser/essere from Latin esse "to be" on one hand, and estar/stare from Latin stare, "to stand" on the other.
For simplicity, the table below has only the full conjugation of the present tense, and the first-person singular forms of some other tenses.

	Latin		(Old) French		Spanish		Italian		Portuguese		Catalan
Infinitive	esse	stāre	être	ester	ser	estar	essere	stare	ser	estar	ser, ésser	estar
Present indicative	sum es est sumus estis sunt	stō stās stat stāmus stātis 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	estou estás está estamos estais estão	sóc ets és som sou són	estic estàs està estem esteu estan
Present subjunctive (first-person sg.)	sim	stem	sois	este	sea	esté	sia	stia	seja	esteja	sigui	estigui
Preterite	fuī	steti	fus	estai	fui	estuve	fui	stetti	fui	estive	fui (unused)	estiguí (unused)
Imperfect	eram	stābam	étais	estais	era	estaba	ero	stavo	era	estava	era	estava
Future	erō	stābō	serai	esterai	seré	estaré	sarò	starò	serei	estarei	seré	estaré
Past participle / Supine	n/a	stātum	été (borrowed)	esté	sido	estado	stato (borrowed)	stato	sido	estado	sigut (dialectal)	estat

In several modern Romance languages, the perfect is a compound 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.
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.
For further information, see the main article.

Germanic languages

� Main article: Germanic verb

	Old Norse	Icelandic	Danish	Old Swedish	Swedish	Old English		English	Old High German	German	Dutch	Gothic
Infinitive	vera	vera	være	vara	vara	wesan	bēon	be	wesan	sein	zijn / wezen	wisan
Present indicative	em ert (est) er (es) erum eruð eru	er ert er erum eruð eru	er	æm æst ær ærum ærin æro	är äro(arch. plur)	eom eart is sint sint sint	bēo bist biþ bēoþ bēoþ bēoþ	am (art) is are are are	bim bis(t) ist birum birut sint	bin bist ist sind seid sind	ben bent is zijn zijn / gij zijt zijn	im is ist sijum sijuþ sind
Present subjunctive	siá sér sé sém séð sé	sé sért sé séum séuð séu	være (extremely rare)	væri væri væri sēin sēn sē	vare (rare)	sīe sīe sīe sīen sīen sīen	bēo bēo bēo bēon bēon bēon	be	sî sîs(t) sî sîm sî(n)t sîn	sei sei(e)st sei seien sei(e)t seien	zij	sijau sijais sijai sijaima sijaiþ sijaina
Preterite	var várum	var varst var vorum voruð voru	var	var vart var vārom vārin vāro	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 was was waren waren/waart waren	was wast was wesum wesuþ wesun
Past participle	verit	verið	været	varin	varit (supine)	——		been	——	gewesen	geweest	——

Old English kept the verbs wesan and bēon separate throughout the present stem, though it isn't 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.

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-. The other forms are from the roots *es- and *bhū-. Welsh mae originally meant "here is" (cf. yma 'here').
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, some treat the substantive forms as assertive forms of the copula; 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	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 mbeidh 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).

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