Romance Copula - History

History

In English, it is possible to say "there stands..." instead of "there is..." in certain contexts. In Latin, too, it became common to eschew in favour of and say where things "stood" instead of where they "were". With time, it became common to use this verb to express other states.

Today, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese, Catalan, and (to a lesser extent) Italian commonly use two copulae, one from each of the Latin verbs. The others use just one main copula, from .

There is also a notable tendency for a derivative of the supine of to replace the past participle of verbs deriving from (which in Latin had no supine). Examples:

• Italian has stato as the past participle of not only stare but also essere, instead of the expected essuto (which, along with suto we encounter only in mediaeval texts).
• Standard Catalan has estat as the past participle of not only estar but also ésser. However, many people use forms such as sigut or sét, which are considered also standard for colloquial speech.
• French has été as the past participle of être, instead of the expected étu. Été developed as follows: → stato → estat → esté → été.

Notes

• Following the standard practice, Latin verbs are quoted here in the first person singular of the present indicative. In other words, is literally "I am", rather than "to be". Their infinitives were and .
• Although it is normal to use lower case when writing Latin in modern times, this article, dealing as it does with etymology, presents Latin in the capital letters used by the Romans, and modern innovations such as, ligatures, macrons, and breves have been avoided.
• Only the basic simple tenses are given in the conjugation tables, but all languages below have also numerous compound tenses.
• The asterisk (*) indicates an incorrect or unattested form.