A feature common to all

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...

is the presence of a

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

corresponding to the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

verb ''to be''.

General features

This verb has two basic meanings: *In a less marked context it is a simple copula (''I’m tired''; ''That’s a shame!''), a function which in non-Indo-European languages can be expressed quite differently. *In a more heavily marked context it expresses existence (''I think therefore I am''); the dividing line between these is not always easy to draw. Some languages have shared these functions between several verbs: Irish, Spanish and Persian all have multiple equivalents of ''to be'', making a variety of distinctions. Many Indo-European languages also use the conjugations of the verb "to be" as an auxiliary for the formation of compound (periphrastic) tenses (''I’m working''; ''I was bitten''). Other functions vary from language to language. For example, although in its basic meanings, ''to be'' is a

stative verb According to some linguistics theories, a stative verb is a verb that describes a state of being, in contrast to a dynamic verb, which describes an action. The difference can be categorized by saying that stative verbs describe situations that are ...

, English puts it to work as a

dynamic verb A dynamic or fientive verb is a verb that shows continued or progressive action on the part of the subject. This is the opposite of a stative verb. Overview Actions denoted by dynamic verbs have duration. They occur over a span of time. This ...

in fixed collocations (''You are being very annoying''). The copula is the most

irregular verb A regular verb is any verb whose conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. This is one instanc ...

in many Indo-European languages. This is partly because it is more frequently used than any other, and partly because

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

offered more than one verb suitable for use in these functions, with the result that the daughter languages, in different ways, have tended to form suppletive verb paradigms. This article describes the way in which the irregular forms have developed from a series of roots.

The Proto-Indo-European IEroots

''*h₁es-''

The root ''*h₁es-'' was certainly already a copula in

. The e-grade ''*h₁es-'' (see

Indo-European ablaut In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German '' Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its ...

) is found in such forms as

''is'',

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

''is'',

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

''ist'',

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

''est'',

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

''asti'', Persian ''ast,''

Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and othe ...

''ѥстъ (jestŭ)''. The zero grade ''*h₁s-'' produces forms beginning with /s/, like German ''sind'', Latin ''sumus'',

Vedic Sanskrit Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid- 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preser ...

''smas'', etc. In

PIE A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts (pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), sweete ...

, ''*h₁es-'' was an

athematic In Indo-European studies, a thematic vowel or theme vowel is the vowel or from ablaut placed before the ending of a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the Indo-European languages with this vowel are thematic, and tho ...

verb in ''-mi''; that is, the first person singular was ''*h₁esmi''; this inflection survives in English ''am'',

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...

''yem'', Persian ''am'', Sanskrit ''asmi'', Bengali first-person verb ending -ām,

(''esmĭ''), etc. This verb is generally reconstructed for

thus:

The root or (which did not have ablaut variations in the protolanguage) probably meant 'to grow', but also 'to become'. This is the source of the English infinitive ''be'' and participle ''been''. Also, for example, the

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...

"future" tense ''bithidh''; the

imperative ''bí'', past ''bhí'' and future ''beidh''; the

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

(along with the other ''b-'' initial forms); Persian imperative ''bov'', past ''bud'' and future ''bâš''; and the Slavic infinitive and past, etc. for example Russian (''byt’''), (''byl''). PIE became Latin /f/, hence the Latin future participle ''futūrus'' and perfect ''fuī''; Latin ''fīō'' 'I become' is also from this root, as is the Greek verb (''phúō''), from which ''physics'' and ''physical'' are derived. was a preterito-present verb, i.e. Imperfect endings for Present, and can be reconstructed as follows:

''*h₂wes-''

The root ''*h₂wes-'' may originally have meant "to live", and has been productive in all

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...

. The e-grade is present in the German participle ''gewesen'', the o-grade (''*wos-'') survives in English and Old High German ''was'', while the lengthened e-grade (''*wēs-'') gives us English ''were''. (The Germanic forms with /r/ result from grammatischer Wechsel.) See Germanic strong verb: Class 5.

''*h₁er-''

This has been claimed as the origin of the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

and later

Scandinavian languages The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is als ...

' present stem: Old Norse ''em, ert, er, erum, eruð, eru''; the second person forms of which were borrowed into English as ''art'' and ''are''. It has also been seen as the origin of the Latin imperfect (''eram, eras, erat'') and future tenses (''ero, eris, erit''). However, other authorities link these forms with ''*h₁es-'' and assume grammatischer Wechsel (/s/→/r/), although this is not normally found in the present stem.

Donald Ringe Donald "Don" Ringe () is an American linguist and Indo-Europeanist. Ringe graduated from University of Kentucky and then received a Master of Philosophy in Linguistics as a Marshall Scholar from the University of Oxford. He received Ph.D in l ...

argues that the copula was sometimes unaccented in Pre-Proto-Germanic, which would have then triggered the voicing under

Verner's law Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives , , , , , following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives , , , , . The law w ...

. He explains the Germanic first person singular form as such, deriving it from earlier , since -zm-, but not -sm-, was assimilated to -mm- in Germanic (for which other evidence exists as well). Furthermore, the third person plural form (from PIE ) shows that this word, too, was unaccented. If the accent had been preserved, it would have become , but that form is not found in any Germanic language. In this view, it is likely that stressed and unstressed varieties of the copula (with corresponding voiceless and voiced fricatives) existed side by side in Germanic, and the involvement of a separate root ' is unnecessary. The Latin forms could be explained by

rhotacism Rhotacism () or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: , , , or ) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to . When a dialect or member of a language ...

''*steh₂-''

The root ''*(s)teh₂-'' meant "to stand". From this root comes the present stem of the so-called "substantive verb" in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, ''tá'' and ''tha'' respectively, as well as ''taw'' in Welsh. On the absence of the initial s- in Celtic, see

Indo-European s-mobile In Indo-European studies, the term s-''mobile'' ( ; the word is a Latin neuter adjective) designates the phenomenon where a PIE root appears to begin with an ' which is sometimes but not always present. It is therefore represented in the reflex o ...

. In Latin, ''stō, stare'' retained the meaning "to stand", until local forms of

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...

began to use it as a copula in certain circumstances. Today, this survives in that several Romance languages (Galician-Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan) use it as one of their two copulae, and there is also a Romance tendency for a past participle derived from ''*steh₂-'' to replace the original one of the copula (this occurs in French, Italian and the main dialects of Catalan). See also

Romance copula In some of the Romance languages the copula, the equivalent of the verb ''to be'' in English, is relatively complex compared to its counterparts in other languages. A copula is a word that links the subject of a sentence with a predicate (a ...

. Although in

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

this verb retains its primary meaning of "stand", it is used in an auxiliary-like function that only has a secondary meaning of "standing", for example: ''ik sta te koken'' ("I am cooking", literally "I stand to cook"). While it is not a full copula (it can normally only be used as an auxiliary with another verb), it does have shades of meaning that resemble that of the Italian ''sto cucinando'' ("I am cooking"). The intransitive verbs ''zitten'' ("to sit"), ''liggen'' ("to lie") and ''lopen'' ("to walk/run") are used in similar ways. In

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

, which usually lacks gerund forms, the corresponding ''stå'' is often used similarly, along with ''sitta'' ("to sit"), ''ligga'' ("to lie") and ''gå'' ("to walk"). In Hindustani the past tense of the copula ''honā'' "to be" which are «tʰā», «tʰe», «tʰī» and «tʰī̃» are derived from Sanskrit «stʰā».

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

has a cognate verb «tʰavũ» "to happen"; cf. Bengali aorist «tʰā-» (to stay) as well.

The resulting paradigms

Indo-Iranian languages

Indic languages

=Sanskrit

= The

root ''as'' (to be) is derived from the Indo-European root *'. ''bhū'' (to be) is derived from Indo-European *'.

= Hindi-Urdu

= In modern

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Hindustani), the

verb अस् ''(as)'' (to be) which is derived from the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...

root ''*'' has developed into the present indicative forms of the verb होना ہونا ''(honā)'' (to be). The infinitive होना ہونا ''(honā)'' itself is derived from the Sanskrit verb root भू ''(bʱū)'' which is derived from Indo-European root ''*.'' The indicative imperfect forms of होना ہونا ''(honā)'' comes from

स्थित ''(stʰita)'' "standing, situated" which are derived from the PIE root ''*steh₂-'' (“to stand”). होना ہونا (''honā'') is the only verb in Hindi-Urdu to have the ''present indicative'', ''imperfect indicative'', ''presumptive mood'' and the ''present subjunctive'' conjugations, and all the other verbs in Hindi-Urdu lack them. The verb होना / ہونا ''(honā)'' can be translated as "to be", "to exist", "to happen" or "to have" depending on the context, and when used in the third person it could also be translated as "''there is/are''". Many verbs conjugations in Hindi-Urdu are derived from participles and hence are gendered and numbered, and they agree with either the object or the subject of the sentence depending on the grammatical case of the subject of the sentence. When the subject is in the ergative or the

dative case In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...

(seeː

dative construction The dative construction is a grammatical way of constructing a sentence, using the dative case. A sentence is also said to be in dative construction if the subject and the object (direct or indirect) can switch their places for a given verb, wit ...

quirky subject In linguistics, quirky subjects (also called oblique subjects) are a phenomenon where certain verbs specify that their subjects are to be in a case other than the nominative. These non-nominative subjects are determiner phrases that pass subjecthoo ...

) the verb agrees in gender and number with the object of the sentence and with the subject when the subject is in the nominative case.

= Bengali

= Bengali is considered a

zero copula Zero copula is a linguistic phenomenon whereby the subject is joined to the predicate without overt marking of this relationship (like the copula "to be" in English). One can distinguish languages that simply do not have a copula and languages tha ...

language, however there are notable exceptions. In the simple present tense there is no verb connecting the subject to the predicative (the "zero verb" copula) but when the predicate expresses ideas of existence, location, or possession, for such cases the verb আছ- (''ach'') can be roughly translated as "to exist" or "to be present". * In the past tense, the incomplete verb আছ- ''(ach)'' is always used as the copula, regardless of the nature of the predicative. * For the future tense and non-finite structures, the copula is supplied by the verb হওয়া (''howa''), with the exceptions being the possessive and locative predicatives for which the verb থাকা (''thaka'', "to remain") is utilized. * Bengali does not have a verb for possession (i.e. "to have", "to own"). Instead, possession in Bengali is expressed by the verb আছ- ''(āch)'' (for present and past tenses) and the verb থাকা ''(thaka)'' (for future tense) inflected with the possessed object and a genitive case for the possessor. Bengali verbs are highly

inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and de ...

and are regular with only few exceptions. They consist of a stem and an ending; they are traditionally listed in Bengali dictionaries in their "verbal noun" form, which is usually formed by adding ''-a'' to the stem: for instance, করা (''kôra, to do'') is formed from the stem কর (''kôr''). The stem can end in either a vowel or a consonant.

= Nepali

= The copula verb of Nepali has two sets of conjugations. The हो (ho) set is used in sentences that equate two things, like त्यो किताब हो (tyo kitāb ho, “That is a book.”) The छ (cha) set is used in sentences that describe something, or locate where something is, like त्यो ठूलो छ (tyo ṭhūlo cha, “That is big.”). Singular present tense forms of the copulas in Nepali are shown in the table below:

Iranic languages

=Persian

= With regard to the function of the verb ‘to be’ as a copula, the most conspicuous feature of Modern

Persian language Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken an ...

is the evolution of an ''existential be'', ''hast'' (exists), out of ''ast'' (is). In fact, when studying the forms and functions of ‘to be’, one might find certain characteristics specific to Persian that is worth pondering uponToofan, M. ''Zabān: ast yā hast?'' (Language: Is or Exists?). Ketāb-e Iran, 2000— i.e. even without considering the

diachronic Synchrony and diachrony are two complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A ''synchronic'' approach (from grc, συν- "together" and "time") considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. Synchronic l ...

evolution of Modern

and its relation to Ancient

Iranian languages The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian languages are groupe ...

(such as

Old Persian Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as ( ...

and

Avestan Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...

) whose usage of the verb ‘to be’ seems more close to

. Paradoxically, despite the fact that Persian is apparently the only

Indo-European language The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...

that has created an ''existential be'' out of the copula, it has simultaneously made an extreme use of the latter to produce a general paradigm for conjugating all Persian verbs. Historically speaking, like most of

that make use of suppletive roots to denote ‘to be’, Persian integrates

(PIE) verbs *''h₁es-'' (to be) and ''*b^huH'' (to grow> to become> to be). Hence, while Persian

infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is de ...

''būdan'' (to be) < PIE ''*b^huH'' forms the past stem of the verb (e.g. Persian ''būd-'' ‘was’) or acts as an

auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a ...

in formation of

pluperfect The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, is a type of verb form, generally treated as a grammatical tense in certain languages, relating to an action that occurred prior to an aforementioned time i ...

of other verbs, its present tense is solely based on the derivatives of PIE *''h₁es-''. It is, in fact, from the

declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ...

of PIE *''h₁es-'' (to be) that six present stems have been created and assigned to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person singular and plural to act as the present-tense conjugation of Persian ''būdan'' (to be), as shown in the following table. As an example, in the following sentences, the present forms of the verb 'to be' are used as copulas or

predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...

s: Furthermore, as endings added to the stem of the verbs, these declensional forms have been

grammaticalized In historical linguistics, grammaticalization (also known as grammatization or grammaticization) is a process of language change by which words representing objects and actions (i.e. nouns and verbs) become grammatical markers (such as affixes or ...

to shape a general paradigm for the

grammatical conjugation In linguistics, conjugation () is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb ''break'' can be conjugated to form the words ''break'', ...

of all other verbs; these endings were once auxiliary verbs which evolved into an

enclitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...

. This generalized conjugational paradigm is also applied to the past tense of the verb ''būdan'' (shown in the table below). However, what is linguistically notable, is the emergence of an ''existential be'' out of the ''copula'', viz ''hast'' (exists) out of ''ast'' (is). The evolution of this exceptional form, might go back to ancient Iranian languages, where ''ast'' could have two variants (cf.

which has both ''as-'' and ''has-'' 1es- ‘be’). In the next phase, what we may call a ''pseudo-verb appeared, vis. the verb hastan'' (to exist) has been ''analogically'' evolved from ''hast'' (exists) and has been conjugated like any other Persian verb (e.g. ''hast-am'' = literally: *‘''(I) am existence''’→ ‘I exist’). The simple past conjugation of the verb ''būdan'' (to be) is in fact formed by a double-copula, in the sense that both the stem and the ending are copulas: the past stem of the verb ''būd''- is derived from PIE *b^huH-, while the endings are from the suppletive form of PIE *h₁es- (to be) with the exception of 3rd person singular which has zero ending for the all Persian verbs in the past tense. The present perfect conjugation of the verb ''būdan'' ''''(to be) is a double copula paradigm as it is produced by addition of all enclitic copulas to the past participle of the verb: ''būde'' (been). The pseudo-verb ''hastan'' (to exist) has only simple present tense; in addition, it is truly and purely existencial only in the case of third person singular (hast). The fact is that the verb has been the product of this very case, as an "existential is", ''hast'' (he/she/it exists). For other persons the conjugation has to use enclitic copulas. These copulas are, in turn, derived from the declension of PIE *h₁es- (to be); as if the predicative "to be" has been an auxiliary verb turned into enclitic, to provide six endings for 1st/2nd/3rd person (singular & plural). However, as it is said, the 3rd person singular has no ending in the case of ''hastan''. That is to say that the existential hast (exists), which is like the alter-ego of the copula ast (is), takes no ending, while the present stem of all other verbs take an archaic ending -''ad'' in their 3rd person singular.

Hellenic languages

Greek

The

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

verb ''eimi'' (I am) is derived from the Indo-European root *'. Dual is not shown in the table. The participles are based on the full-grade stem ἐσ- in Homeric, according to Smyth.

Italic languages

Except for Latin, the older

Italic languages The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient languages was Latin, the official languag ...

are very scarcely attested, but we have in

Oscan Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy. The language is in the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic branch of the Italic languages. Oscan is therefore a close relative of Umbrian. Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including t ...

''set'' (they are), ''fiiet'' (they become), ''fufans'' (they have been) and ''fust'' (he will be), and in

Umbrian Umbrian is an extinct Italic language formerly spoken by the Umbri in the ancient Italian region of Umbria. Within the Italic languages it is closely related to the Oscan group and is therefore associated with it in the group of Osco-Umbrian ...

''sent'' (they are). This section will explain Latin, and the

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...

that have evolved from it. ''Esse'' and the forms beginning with (e)s- are from the root ''*h₁es-'', while the forms beginning with ''f-'' are from the root . For the forms beginning with er-, see '. ''Stāre'' is derived from the root ''*steh₂-''. In

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

Galician-Portuguese Galician-Portuguese ( gl, galego-portugués or ', pt, galego-português or ), also known as Old Portuguese or as Medieval Galician when referring to the history of each modern language, was a West Iberian Romance language spoken in the Middle ...

and to a lesser extent,

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

there are two parallel paradigms, ''ser/èsser/essere'' from Latin ''esse'' "to be" on the one hand, and ''estar/stare'' from Latin ''stare'', "to stand" on the other. In several modern

, the perfect is a compound tense formed with the past participle as in English, but the old Latin perfect survives as a commonly used

preterite The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple ...

in Spanish and Portuguese, and as a literary "

past historic The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple past ...

" in

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

, Italian and Catalan. There is a tendency for a past participle derived from ''stare'' (or more specifically its supine, ''statum'') to replace that of the main copula derived from ''esse''. For example, the French participle ''été'' comes from ''statum''.

Germanic languages

Proto-Germanic retained the dual, but only in the first and second person. * Old English kept the verbs ''wesan'' and ''bēon'' separate throughout the present stem, though it is not clear that the kind of consistent distinction in usage was made that we find, for example in Spanish. In the preterite, however, the paradigms fell together. Old English has no participle for this verb. * The plural forms in Modern Swedish (indicated in brackets) were in common use in formal written language until the mid-20th century, but are now no longer in use except in deliberately archaising texts. The preterite subjunctive is also increasingly being replaced by the indicative, or past participle. * Dutch, like English, has abandoned the original second-person singular forms, replacing them with the second-person plural forms. However, while in English the old forms are still in limited and deliberately archaic use, in Dutch they have disappeared entirely and are no longer known or used at all. The forms listed in the plural are the historical plural forms, the 'jij' and 'gij' forms. Dutch formed a new plural pronoun 'jullie' with inflection similar to the 1st and 3rd person plural, but it would be redundant to list them here.

Slavic languages

* In Russian, the present forms are archaic and no longer in common use, except for the third person forms, which are used in "there is/are" type phrases. *In Ukrainian, the present tense forms of the verb "бути" have all but disappeared from contemporary language, except for the third person form which is used in existential phrases; єсть (jesť) is archaic and encountered only in poetry. All participles have turned into other parts of speech, future and past active participles becoming present and past active adverbial participle respectively, and resultative pariciple becoming past tense of verbs. * In Serbo-Croatian the forms ''jesam, jesi, jeste'' and so on are used as the basic form of the Present Tense "to be" (i.e. ''I am, you are'' etc.), while the forms ''budem, budeš, bude'' etc. are used only for the formation of the Future Perfect. * In Bulgarian, forms ''бъда'', ''бъдеш'', etc. are not used by themselves but only in compound forms (future ''ще бъда'', subjunctive ''да бъда''). In this respect they closely follow the usage (and non-usage) of perfective verbs. As such it has its own forms for the aorist (''бидох'', ''биде'', ''биде'', ''бидохме'', ''бидохте'', бидоха''), the imperfect (''бъдех'', ''бъдеше'', ''бъдеше'', ''бъдехме'', ''бъдехте'', ''бъдеха'') and the resultative participle (''бъдел''). Another verb - ''бивам'' with fully regular conjugation type III paradigm - completes an aspect triple: imperfective ''съм'', perfective ''бъда'', secondary imperfective ''бивам''. The perfective aorist has lost its original meaning and is now used only to form the compound conditional mood (''бих чел'' = ''I would read''). All participles except the resultative participle (''бил'') have lost their function and are now used as regular adjectives with changed meanings (''същ'' = ''same'', ''бивш'' = ''previous'', ''ex-'', ''бъдещ'' = ''future'').

Baltic languages

In Lithuanian, the paradigm ''būnu, būni, būna'', etc. is not considered archaic or dialectal but rather a special use of the verb ''būti'', to be, mostly used to describe repeated actions or states, or habits.

Celtic languages

In the

Celtic languages The Celtic languages (usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward ...

there is a distinction between the so-called substantive verb, used when the predicate is an adjective phrase or prepositional phrase, and the so-called copula, used when the predicate is a noun. The conjugation of the

Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writte ...

and

Middle Welsh Middle Welsh ( cy, Cymraeg Canol, wlm, Kymraec) is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 15th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This form of Welsh developed directly from Old Welsh ( cy, Hen G ...

verbs is as follows: The forms of the Old Irish present tense of the substantive verb, as well as Welsh ''taw'', come from the PIE root *''stā-''. The other forms are from the roots *''es-'' and *''bhū-''. Welsh ''mae'' originally meant "here is" (cf. ''yma'' 'here').

Irish and Scottish Gaelic

In modern Gaelic, person inflections have almost disappeared, but the negative and interrogative are marked by distinctive forms. In Irish, particularly in the south, person inflections are still very common for the ''tá/bhí'' series.

=The verb bí

=The copula

= Gaelic ''(bh)eil'' and Irish ''(bh)fuil'' are from Old Irish ''fuil'', originally an imperative meaning "see!" (PIE root ''*wel-'', also in Welsh ''gweled'', Germanic ''wlitu-'' "appearance", and Latin voltus "face"), then coming to mean "here is" (cf. French ''voici < vois ci'' and ''voilà < vois là''), later becoming a suppletive dependent form of ''at-tá''. Gaelic ''robh'' and Modern Irish ''raibh'' are from the perfective particle ''ro'' (''ry'' in Welsh) plus ''ba'' (lenited after ''ro'').

Modern Welsh

The present tense in particular shows a split between the North and the South. Though the situation is undoubtedly more complicated, King (2003) notes the following variations in the present tense as spoken (not as written according to the standard orthography): : For example, the spoken first person singular dw i'n is a contraction of the formal written yr ydwyf fi yn . The Welsh F /v/ is the fricative analogue of the nasal /m/, the PIE suffix consonant for the first person singular. : also has a conditional, for which there are two stems. The ''bas-'' stem is more common in the North, and the ''bydd-'' stem is more common in the South: :

Hittite

The Hittite verb "to be" is derived from the Indo-European root *'.

Armenian

The Classical Armenian present tense derives from PIE *'- (cf. sg. ', ', '; 3rd pl. ').

Hrach K. Martirosyan Hrach K. Martirosyan ( hy, Հրաչ Մարտիրոսյան; born in Vanadzor in 1964) is an Armenian linguist. He is currently Lecturer in Eastern Armenian in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at University of California, Los A ...

, ''Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon'', s.v. “em” (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 255.

Albanian

The Albanian copula shows two distinct roots. The present ''jam'' ‘I am’ is an athematic root stem built from PIE *'. The imperfect continues the PIE imperfect of the same root but was rebuilt based on the 3rd person singular and plural. The preterite, on the other hand, comes from the thematic aorist of PIE *' ‘turn’ (cf. Ancient Greek ''épleto'' ‘he turned’, Armenian ''eɫew'' ‘he became’, Old Irish ''cloïd'' ‘turns back, defeats’). Analogical or otherwise indirect reflexes are italicized below. * Standard ''*ësht''.

Notes

References

{{Proto-Indo-European language Copula