COPULA (The) is that part of a proposition which indicates that the predicate is affirmed or denied of the subject. This is sometimes done by inflection; as when we say, Fire burns; the change from burn to burns showing that we mean to affirm the predicate burn of the subject fire. But this function is more commonly fulfilled by the word is, when an affirmation is intended—is not, when a negation; or by. some other part of the verb to be; and the copula may always be resolved into this form. Sometimes is is both copula and predicate, e.g., «One of Jacob’s sons is not.» But the copula, merely as such, does not imply real existence, e.g., «A faultless man is a being feigned by the Stoics» (see Whately, Logic, bk. II. ch. I. sec. 2 ; Mill, Logic, bk. I. ch. IV. sec. 1; Fowler, Deductive Logic, p. 25).
