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

The errors of common opinion arise to a great extent from the ambiguous use of the verb “to be,” which may imply existence or be merely the copula which connects subject and predicate.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 2 "Ehud" to "Electroscope" by Various

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

These propositions, as will be seen, are not cast in what the logician calls logical form, with regular terms and copula.

From John Dewey's logical theory by Howard, Delton Thomas

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