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 copula is the sign denoting that there is an affirmation or denial, and thereby enabling the hearer or reader to distinguish a proposition from any other kind of discourse.

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

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

By means of this representation, and the peculiar nature of the attribute, the verb is distinguished from the mere logical copula, with which it is liable to be confounded if these ideas are not understood.

From The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt With the Translation of an Unpublished Memoir by Him on the American Verb by Brinton, Daniel Garrison