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 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

In such a case as this, the verb expresses predication and nothing else, and is called a copula.

From Hume (English Men of Letters Series) by Huxley, Thomas Henry

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

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