History and Definition of Copula: A Diachronic Survey

This study provides a diachronic survey of the copula, tracing its conceptual evolution from its philosophical origins in Aristotle to its modern linguistic analyses, with a particular focus on its manifestations in Bangla and other Indo-European (IE) languages. The copula, a near-ubiquitous linguistic element, serves as a syntactic linker, verbalizer, and marker of propositional truth claims, yet its form and function vary significantly across languages. Beginning with Aristotle’s ontological treatment of the Greek copula ‘esti’ as a logical and metaphysical bridge, the study examines medieval scholastic contributions, notably Abelard’s formalization of the term ‘copula’ as a syntactic connector. Renaissance and Port-Royal grammarians further shifted the focus to its grammatical role, while 19th-century comparative philology and 20th-century linguistic theories - encompassing structuralism, generative grammar, formal semantics, and typology - revealed its syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic complexity. In Bangla, the coexistence of overt and zero-copula constructions highlights language-specific variability, challenging universalist assumptions about the copula’s necessity. Pustet’s (2005) typological critique underscores the copula’s context-dependent nature, as seen in languages like Tagalog and Russian, where predication occurs without an overt copula. This paper synthesizes these perspectives to propose a multifaceted definition of the copula as a language-specific element that facilitates predication, verbalizes non-verbal predicates, and encodes truth claims, modulated by pragmatic and discourse factors. By integrating philosophical, logical, and linguistic insights, this study illuminates the copula’s interdisciplinary significance and its role in bridging syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The analysis of Bangla’s copula system offers a valuable case study for exploring cross-linguistic diversity, contributing to ongoing debates about the copula’s universality and functional scope in linguistic theory.