No Genuine Copula in Japanese: the pseudo-copula =da as an existential, conjunctive and locative complex

Abstract:

This paper proposes an alternative analysis of the Japanese so-called copula =da and its non-contracted form =de aru. While =da / =de aru has traditionally been treated as a copula equivalent to English be, we argue instead that the nature of this pseudo-copula can be better understood in terms of how Japanese, which lacks the primitive be, has employed its most basic linguistic resources — namely, the locative postposition =ni 'in', the conjunctive suffix -te 'and' and the existential verb ar- 'exist', all of which, still today, autonomously underlie =da — to encode a relation between an entity and its specification as to what it is.

Under this conception, the construction A=wa B=de aru — translationally 'A is B' — is analysed semantically as both existence-introducing and existence-domain-specifying (i.e. conceptual-domain-specifying). Syntactically, it consists — despite its apparent counterintuitiveness — of the one-argument obligatory construction [A=wa aru] 'A exists' and the adjunct [B=de] 'with (A's existence) located in the conceptual domain of B' or, more practically, 'and it is as B'. Schematically, it can be represented as the conjunctive proposition EXIST(A) ⋀ IN(evEXIST(A), B) — whose default negation pattern is, as expected, scope-limited, namely EXIST(A) ⋀ ¬IN(evEXIST(A), B), realised as A=wa B=de=wa nai, crucially with the scope-limiting =wa occurring after B=de.

This reanalysis makes possible a unified account of the structure, semantics and diachronic development of Japanese so-called copular constructions.