[Lingtyp] Split in copulas co-occurring with nominals?

[Abigail Roberts]

Hello all,
I'm wondering if anyone is aware of any languages with a particular
distribution of copulas. I'm researching non-verbal clauses in Nukuoro, a
Polynesian Outlier language spoken in Micronesia. In Nukuoro, only
non-verbal sentences with two nominals (i.e., predicative clauses
with nominal predicates and equative and identificational clauses) include
copulas. Sentences with prepositional or adjectival predicates do not:

Adjectival
Emily e looloa, gai a Noa e bodobodo.
Emily ipfv tall, then pn Noa ipfv short
'Emily is tall, but Noa is short.' (Drummond 2023:92)

Prepositional
D-ogu daina daane i lote hale.
def-1sg.gen.o sibling male loc inside house
'My brother is inside the house.'

However, in non-verbal sentences with two nominals, different copulas are
used depending on whether the sentence is predicative (generally,
indefinite predicates) or not.

Predicative
Ia *se *gauligi suguulu.
3sg cop.sg child school
'S/he is a student.'

Equative
De henua naa *go *Pohnpei.
det island med cop.foc Pohnpei
'That island is Pohnpei.'

Does anyone know of a language with a similar pattern of copularization-
one copula for indefinite nominal predicates/predicative clauses and one
for definite or referential nominals?

Thank you all for your help!

All the best,
Abby Roberts
(PhD student, UC Berkeley)
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