How to use copula in a sentence

12 example sentences · noun

Copula means a word, usually a verb, used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (usually a subject complement or an adverbial), that unites or associates the subject with the predicate. Example: “I begin by arguing in section 2 that there are in fact at least two Celtic copulas, a grammatical copula that simply spells out tense and agreement, and a substantive copula formed on a lexically listed verbal stem.”

Examples of copula by meaning

nounA word, usually a verb, used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (usually a subject complement or an...

I begin by arguing in section 2 that there are in fact at least two Celtic copulas, a grammatical copula that simply spells out tense and agreement, and a substantive copula formed on a lexically listed verbal stem.1994, Randall Hendrick, “8: The Brythonic Celtic copula and head raising”, in David Lightfoot, Norbert Hornstein, editors, Verb Movement...
The theory of conjunctively tensed copulae will be developed and stated with more precision in the following section.2002, Quentin Smith, Language and Time, page 189
This paper explores the position of the copula in the development of the verb system in second language acquisition of Italian.2003, Giuliano Bernini, “The copula in learner Italian: Finiteness and verbal inflection”, in Christine Dimroth, Marianne Starren, editors...

nounA function that represents the association between two or more variables, independent of the individual marginal...

Morgan Chase, began using mathematical functions called Gaussian copulas to estimate the likelihood of corporations’ dying in unison.2009 March 10, Dennis Overbye, “Mathematical Model and the Mortgage Mess”, in New York Times
There is little statistical theoretical theory for copulas.2009, N. Balakrishnan, Chin-Diew Lai, Continuous Bivariate Distributions, page 59
Copulas provide an example of the haphazard evolution of quantitative finance.2011, Julian Shaw, “Chapter 16: Julian Shaw”, in Richard R. Lindsey, Barry Schachter, editors, How I Became a Quant: Insights from 25 of...

More sentences with copula

The basic function of the copula in Japanese is to predicate, adnominalize or adverbialize nouns.2010, Bjarke Frellesvig, A History of the Japanese Language, page 94. From the entry adverbialize
It contains a copula, that is, when joined to the correct number of arguments it produces an assertion.2011 July 20, Edwin Mares, “Propositional Functions”, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, fall 2011 edition, archived from the…. From the entry argument
Finally, ortholinear copulas with a given diagonal section are copulas that are linear on line segments perpendicular to the main diagonal of the unit square.2012, Salvatore Greco, Bernadette Bouchon-Meunier, Giulianella Coletti, Advances in Computational Intelligence, page 175. From the entry ortholinear
There was a copula up there, one of those small, windowed houselings whose pointed roof inevitably supported the weathervane, as it did here.2011, John Knauf, The Ropewalk. From the entry houseling
Males of all three species have very similar microtrichosity pattern of mesoscutum which otherwise helps to associate males with females even if not taken in copula.2015 July 27, Miroslav Barták, Štěpán Kubík, “Palaearctic species of Rhamphomyia (Pararhamphomyia) anfractuosa group (Diptera…. From the entry microtrichosity
Eroticism is just one of the names of heterological impulse at work — Incomplete through the metonymic effect of the copula — throughout The Caesarean Incomplete.1992, Denis Hollier, Against Architecture: The Writings of Georges Bataille, →ISBN, page 74. From the entry heterological

Meaning of copula

noun A word, usually a verb, used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (usually a subject complement or an adverbial), that unites or associates the subject with the predicate.
noun The bond or relationship by which two things are combined into a unity.
noun A function that represents the association between two or more variables, independent of the individual marginal distributions of the variables.

Full definition of copula

Questions about copula in a sentence

How do you use copula in a sentence?: Copula is used as a noun. For example: “I begin by arguing in section 2 that there are in fact at least two Celtic copulas, a grammatical copula that simply spells out tense and agreement, and a substantive copula formed on a lexically listed verbal stem.”
What is a short sentence with copula?: “There is little statistical theoretical theory for copulas.”
What does copula mean?: Copula means a word, usually a verb, used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (usually a subject complement or an adverbial), that unites or associates the subject with the predicate.

Adapted from Wiktionary: copula (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use copula in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/copula. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.