A linguistic question (looking mainly at you thnidu, but there are other folks who might know, too)

[xiphias]

Elsejournal, a couple days ago, someone wrote a post which quoted Bishop John Shelby Spong: "The verb 'to be' is the key verb in every human language. We use it to describe that which is of our very essence."

The post was, and is, a lovely meditation on the nature of coming out, and the reactions to National Coming Out Day, but I objected to that quote, saying that plenty of languages lack a verb "to be".

So it started me wondering: do languages with an explicit verb "to be" fall into any specific clusters? Do some language families have them, and others lack them, or is it more scattershot?

Comments

An answer

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Got a kind of an answer here, and it may surprise a lot of folks: Of 386 languages surveyed, close to half -- 45% -- allow a zero copula in sentences like "John is a sailor".

This is from the World Atlas of Language Structures Online (WALS); click on the chapter title just below for more detail.

Chapter 120: Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals
by Leon Stassen

1. Defining the values

This map shows the areal distribution of zero copula encoding for predicate nominals. That is, the map indicates whether a given language is like English, in which predicate nominals always require an overt copula (see 1), or rather like Russian, in which omission of the copula is allowed for at least some constructions (see 2).

(1)
a. John is a sailor.
b. *John a sailor.
[The asterisk means "This is ungrammatical: no native speaker would say it or accept it, unless by mistake."]

(2) Russian (Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm p.c.)
Moskva gorod
Moscow city
‘Moscow is a city.’

Thus, the following values will be shown on the map:

Values of Map 120A. Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals

⬤	Zero copula is impossible	211
⃝	Zero copula is possible	175
	total:	386

Respectfully submitted,
Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, and Philological Busybody

 

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Languages which are closely related areally or genetically may differ considerably in the extent to which they allow zero encoding. For instance, while Austronesian languages typically opt for zero encoding, a full copula is mandatory in a closely related group of three Austronesian languages from northern and central Vanuatu (Ambrym, Big Nambas, and Paamese).

That pretty much answers my original question, yeah. While there are some areas of the Earth where zero-copula languages are more common than others, there isn't a real strong "this language family does/that language family doesn't" thing going on.