1 Introduction
The verb olema ‘be’ in Estonian, and the cognate verb in the other Finnic languages, has several functions, which are shown in the following Estonian examples.
1. Auxiliary: Ta on söömas (eat-maINF.INE) ‘He is in the process of eating’. Ta on söönud (eat.PST.PTCP) ‘He has eaten’. See on söödud (eat.PASS.PST. PTCP) ‘It is/has been eaten’. The sentence with the passive past participle has variously been considered a passive or a copula clause, and has been discussed in Chapter 6. This function will not be discussed further. 2. Existential verb: On olemas (be.maINF.INE) taevas. (lit. is being heaven) ‘Heaven exists’. Maailmas on palju keeli (language.PL.PAR)(lit. in the world are many languages) ‘There are many languages in the world’. This Pustet (2003: 5) calls a semi-copula, because of its semantic content of existence. Existential clauses are discussed in Chapter 9. 3. Copula: See on Jaan ‘This is John.’ Taevas on sinine ‘The sky is blue’. As a copula, the verb olema has no semantic content, and only serves as a link. A copula clause consists of the subject, the copula and the complement. The copula may sometimes be omitted, which according to Kettunen (1943: 74) is especially common in southern and central Veps. Harris and Campbell (1995: 368) mention that formerly Finnic had no copula, which was adopted later.
There is another copular verb, which has the meaning of ‘become’. In Estonian this verb is saama ‘become, get’, in Finnish the corresponding verb is tulla, which, in addition to being used as ‘become’, means ‘come’. Both of these verbs can also be used in the past tense. Karelian has the verb roita ‘become’. In Livonian līb, the potential form of olla ‘be’, is used for the future. In Veps also linda, the future-potential of ‘be’ occurs (Kettunen 1943: 74), as well as tegese ‘becomes’, teghe ‘became’.
* Part of the material in this chapter has been published in Lees (2008).
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004296367_009 312 Chapter 8
In the copula clause the subject is nominative. It can also be a clause. There are a few examples of partitive forms of indefinite pronouns occurring as sub- jects, such as ‘something’ or more commonly ‘nothing’. The nominative form of these pronouns is less commonly used, especially in older texts. The cop- ula complement can be a noun, adjective, adverb, or a non-finite verb. The noun complement is very variable. It may be in most of the standard cases of Estonian or corresponding ones in the other languages, which vary slightly from the Estonian list. The Finnish ‑t accusative of personal pronouns does not occur as a copula complement. The translative case is usual with ‘become’. In this chapter only the nominal and adjectival complements in the nominative and partitive cases are discussed. It makes no difference to the case of the sub- ject or complement whether the clause is affirmative or negative, and both are included in the tables.
2 Noun Phrase Copula Complements
Table 8.1 shows the number of instances of nominative and partitive com- plements in the synchronic biblical corpus, nouns and pronouns shown separately. Partitive pronoun complements are more plentiful than nouns in Estonian and Livonian, which have no partitive noun copula complements in the synchronic biblical corpus, but at least one example is found in all the other languages. The table includes the complements of both identifying and ascriptive clauses. Negative clauses are included. For Finnish VISK §1229 gives the results from two studies of case distribu- tion of predicates (copula complements) as 41% and 63.8% partitive, with an occasional genitive (less than 1%) and the rest nominative.
Table 8.1 The distribution of nominative and partitive case of copula complements in the synchronic Finnic biblical corpus
Nouns Pronouns Nominative Partitive Nominative Partitive
Estonian 172 (100%) 0 23 (88%) 3 (12%) Livonian 155 (100%) 0 21 (68%) 10 (32%) Finnish 123 (73%) 46 (27%) 14 (61%) 9 (39%) Karelian 161 (99%) 1 (1%) 25 (96%) 1 (4%) Veps 168 (98%) 4 (2%) 20 (91%) 2 (9%)