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

But since the former can be conceived only after the manner of the latter, the appropriateness of using the verb which expresses existence or reality, as the logical copula, will be at once apparent.

From Ontology or the Theory of Being by Coffey, Peter

Again, adjectives are used as intransitive verbs, as in most Indian languages there is no verb to be used as a predicant or copula.

From On the Evolution of Language First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1879-80, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1881, pages 1-16 by Powell, John Wesley

Dismissing, for the present, the copula, of which more will be said hereafter, every proposition, then, consists of at least two names—brings together two names, in a particular manner.

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

We may, then, state the following rule for the conversion of propositions in which the whole relation explicitly stated is taken as the copula: Transpose the terms, and for the given relation substitute its reciprocal.

From Logic Deductive and Inductive by Read, Carveth