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

Fri Sep 5 18:39:12 UTC 2025

Dear Abby,

Thanks for an interesting query.

The majority of Oceanic (Austronesian) languages are omnipredicative, i.e.
they form their predicates without a copula, whether that predicate is
headed by an adjective, a locative phrase (as in your prepositional
example), or a noun, a pronoun, a numeral...
In that sense, the first two examples you gave for Nukuoro are rather
typical of the Oceanic family.

Oceanic languages with a copula for nominal predicates are less frequent,
but they do exist:  e.g. several languages of Central Vanuatu (Lewo,
Nafsan, Lelepa...) have a verbal copula for nouns.
Now Nukuoro is even more original in having two copulas!  This is rare in
Oceanic languages, but not unknown.
Andrew Pawley has shown that *Wayan Fijian* (one of the varieties of
Fijian) is such a language:

Ascriptive predicates take a copula *tia*:

(1)    ⟨Ei *tia *qasenivuli⟩ o Tevita.

3sg:NPST *be:ASCR* teacher PERS (name)

‘Tevita is a teacher.’

Equative predicates take the copula *ni‑*:

(2)    ⟨Ei *ni*‑a na qasenivuli⟩ o Tevita.

3sg:NPST  *be:EQUAT‑*3sg ART teacher PERS (name)

‘Tevita is the teacher.’

I believe the two copulas of Wayan Fijian match closely what you find in
Nukuoro.  Indeed,

   - what you called "indefinite nominal predicates" correspond to what are
   sometimes called *ascriptive predicates*
   - where the subject is ascribed a (nominal) property  [e.g. 'X is a
   teacher'].

   - what you labelled "definite or referential nominals" are also known as
   *equative*
*predicates *- where the subject is equated with a pre-identified referent
   [e.g. 'X is the teacher'].

The examples I cited for Wayan Fijian come from Pawley (2000: 312) -- see
ref below.  I cited them in an upcoming paper of mine (François f/c) on
non-verbal predicates in Oceanic languages, where I used the categories
"ascriptive" and "equative".

Closer to Nukuoro, *Tahitian *uses *e* for ascriptive predicates, but *'o* for
equatives (see discussion in my paper). These examples are from Lazard &
Peltzer (1991):

(3)   < *e*   faehau>  tera ta'ata.

ASCR soldier         that  person

'That man <is a soldier>.'  [ASCRIPTIVE]

(4)   < *'o*   tera ta'ata> tō matou paoti.

 EQUAT  that person       ART:Poss 1exc:Pl boss

'Our boss <is that man>.'  [EQUATIVE]

The particles *e* and *'o* of Tahitian are cognate with Nukuoro *se* and
*go*, respectively (PPN *se, *ko).  A similar system can be found in other
Polynesian languages.
______
References:

   - François, Alexandre. (f/c) Non-verbal predicates in Oceanic languages.
   In Pier Marco Bertinetto, Luca Ciucci, & Denis Creissels (eds), *Non-verbal
   predication in the world’s languages: A typological survey*.
   (Comparative Handbooks of Linguistics 9.) Berlin: DeGruyter.  [preprint
   <https://marama.huma-num.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2024_Non-verbal-predication_Oceanic_preprint.pdf>
   ]
   - Lazard, Gilbert & Louise Peltzer. 1991. Predicates in Tahitian
   <https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3623158.pdf?casa_token=Cw-1YjfaWZEAAAAA:BO2F-Wg3Ca9cFJcUIgejMsfcXocUHHevozObMz4-0xV5rgC4FK7TWpsZsLrC0MfM_gpNPzDYVI0HdC4Jbk4Ler-TwlcX4w7hqhlhjEx2JGF5CQpf9Kc>.
   *Oceanic Linguistics* 30(1). 1‒31.
   - Pawley, Andrew. 2000. Two be’s or not two be’s? On the copulas of
   Wayan Fijian
   <https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/server/api/core/bitstreams/9ca7fa43-a845-4930-8b77-3008c5966d46/content>.
   In Bill Palmer & Paul A. Geraghty (eds.), *Proceedings of the Second
   International Conference on Oceanic Linguistics (SICOL), vol. 2, Historical
   and descriptive studies*, 297–314. (Pacific Linguistics 505). Canberra:
   Australian National University.

Just like you, I'd be curious to hear whether there are other parts of the
world where such systems can be found, with two nominal copulas, one for
equatives vs. one for ascriptives.

regards,
Alex
------------------------------

Alex François
LaTTiCe <http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/> — CNRS
<https://www.cnrs.fr/en> — <https://www.cnrs.fr/en> ENS
<https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>
–PSL <https://www.psl.eu/en> — Sorbonne nouvelle
<http://www.sorbonne-nouvelle.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
<http://www.sorbonne-nouvelle.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
<http://www.sorbonne-nouvelle.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
Australian National University
<https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/persons/alex-francois>
Personal homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>
_________________________________________

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Abigail Roberts via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Date: Fri, 5 Sept 2025 at 18:53
Subject: [Lingtyp] Split in copulas co-occurring with nominals?
To: <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>

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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