copula

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

In one episode the shirtless tribal leader Khal Drogo delivered a monologue for two and a half minutes in Dothraki, with its subject-verb-object structure and no copula, or linking verb.

From New York Times • Dec. 11, 2011

He thinks his fate alien, because the copula is hidden.

From The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature Representative Prose and Verse by Various

It is not necessary in every proposition, but it is necessary in the arrangement of a syllogism, to extricate the terms of its propositions from the copula; e.g. mortal—man—Socrates.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 5 "Arculf" to "Armour, Philip" by Various

Some logicians, among whom may be mentioned Hobbes, state this distinction differently; they recognize only one form of copula, is, and attach the negative sign to the predicate.

From A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive by Mill, John Stuart

The logicians will not see that their formal proposition, "Every X is Y," is material in three points, the degree of assertion, the quantity of the proposition, and the copula.

From A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I by Smith, David Eugene