East African Journal of Education Studies

Copula is a verb whose main function is to link subjects with predicate complements. In a limited sense, the copular refers to a verb that does not have any semantic content but links subjects and predicate complements. In a broad sense, the copular contains a verb that has its own meaning and bears the syntactic function of “the copular”. This study aimed at investigating the syntactical structure of copular clauses in Kipsigis, a Kalenjin dialect majorly spoken in the counties of Bomet, Kericho


INTRODUCTION
Copula verb (be) stands out from other verbs in that it just has a role of a linker, an element joining two items surrounding it without imposing any easily noticeable syntactic or semantic restrictions on these items.Pustet (2003) states that a copula is a linguistic element which co-occurs with certain lexemes in certain languages when they function as a predicate nucleus and it does not add any semantic content to the predicate phrase it is contained in.The copula verb be stands out from other verbs in that it just has the role of a linker, an element joining two items surrounding it, without imposing any easily noticeable syntactic or semantic restrictions on these items.Kipsigis dialect is understudied, especially in syntax.The studies of syntax in this language have focused on the internal syntax of noun phrases and syntax of adjectival modifications, analysis of the basic word order properties, and the role of information structure in determining postverbal word order.Kipsigis copular clauses have not been given attention.This research aimed to analyse various types of Kipsigis copular clauses and establish their binding connectivity.This study contributed to the development of the syntactic theory in the area of copular verbs of the Kipsigis dialect.
This study presents the types of Kipsigis copular clauses as per the objective of the study.It is wellknown that sentences with 'be' can express a variety of meanings, depending on the particular kind of 'be' that is being used.In this study, the type of construction investigated was basically that of the form Noun phrase (NP) be NP' although other construction of the form 'NP be Adjective' was considered.
Many linguists hold that sentences of the form 'NP be NP' fall apart into two semantic types, which are often referred to as 'predicational' and 'specificational'.Kipsigis copula is ko 'be'.This copula lacks lexical meaning and has a grammatical function, which includes conveying tense, aspect, agreement features, mood, and links the subject and complement.In this study, a copula is analysed in a much wider sense.All the clauses with the finite form of the verb 'be" ko was analysed as copula clauses.
Kipsigis is a verb-first language, and the order of the subject and the object depends on the context.Examples 1(a &b) provide illustrations.This fronting is caused by the assignment of focus to a phrase.As illustrated above, 2 (a) has the subject in the initial position, while 2 (b) has the complement of the verb in the initial position.According to Jones (2018), placing a phrase in the initial position gives it a first mention and this makes it more prominent than other phrases in the clauses.In example 2(a), the greater prominence falls on the subject and 2 (b) on the predicate.In example 2(a), the subject is not only made more prominence, but it can also be emphasised that it was only Jane, the teacher rather than any other person.
Focus in Kipsigis, then, can be said to convey the prominence of the first mention.Kipsigis copular clauses have fronted-order versions such as (Subject+ Verb+ Object) or (Object+ Verb +Subject).Crystal, D. (2008) observes that most languages have one main copula, although some like (Spanish, Portuguese and Thai) have more than one, and some have none.In the case of Kipsigis, it has only one copula (ko).The principal use of a copula in Kipsigis is to link the subject of a clause to a subject complement as shown in sentence (3a, b & c) In sentences, the noun phrase Kitabut and ngetet is the subject, the verb ko serves as the copula, and the predicational phrase miiten Meset barak and yametit are the predicative expression respectively.
In Kipsigis verbless copular clauses, the copular clause lacks the copula element in the present tense, but in past and future tenses, the copula element is obligatory as shown in ( 4a-c & b) show that Kipsigis copula sentence is grammatical with or without a copula in present tense, but in past and future tense, the copula element is obligatory as shown in sentences 4(c&d).Dixon (2000) states that other researchers have found out that a number of languages such as Hebrew, Russsian, Illongo and Arabic do not have overt copular in present tense, but they have it in past and future tense.According to Thompson and Sawyer (1977), some languages such as many Austronesian and Australian languages, specifically Konkow and Nisenan, do not have a copula in any tense.

Types of Kipsigis Copular Clauses
In Kipsigis verbless copular clauses, the copula 'ko' allows for the fronting of lexical material before the verb.This fronting order can be referred to as verb-second order.The presence of the copula in a clause characterises it as 'a copula clause' but it is the predicate which accounts for different types of copula clauses.The analysis of Kipsigis copula clauses is based on Higgins (1973)

Predicational Clause
Predicational sentence, predicates a property of the subject NP, for example, the sentence 'John is a good teacher' (when used without contrastive accent on any of the constituents).Just predicate John with the characteristics of being a good teacher.There is no sense that a value is being specified for a variable.Like English counterparts, Barnett (1994) observes that Kipsigis predicational clauses, the predicative expression accompanying the copula, also known as the complement of the copula, may take any of the several possible forms: it may be a noun or noun phrase, an adjective or adjective phrase, a prepositional phrase, an adverb or adverbial phrase expressing time or location.house.SG The man is in the house In sentences 2a, there is a predicational relation between two Determiner Phrases (DPs), the predicate DP and subject NP.In 2(b), the DP and Adjective phrase (AP), 2(c) DP and Adverb Phrase (AdvP) and 2(d) DP and Preposition phrase (PP).In these sentences, the complement ascribes a given feature to the subject DP.

a). John ko sirindet
In predicational sentences, we cannot reverse the order of subjects and complements, when reversed the sentences become Specificational sentence.The copula can be replaced with 'become' as in sentence 3c but in predicational sentences 'follow' cannot replace the copula as shown in sentence 3d as shown below: Given that the future and past morpheme (ki & tun) are tensed markers in Kipsigis located in T, the copula (Ko) should be generated in a position lower than TP that is a VP position.

Specificational Clause
Partee (1999) defines a specificational clause as one whose semantic function is to specify a value for a variable.Thus, the sentence 'The one who stole mangoes is John' is specificational, because it specifies a value 'John,' for the variable 'X' who stole the mangoes.This is a type of copular clause in which the referent of the post-copular noun phrase is the entity that meets a condition denoted by the pre-copular noun phrase.Most researchers have proposed that in specificational sentences, in some sense the predication is ꞌturned aroundꞌ.All agree that in specificational sentences, NP2 is ꞌmore referentialꞌ than NP1.As noted by researchers starting with Higgins (1973), specificational sentences can usually be ꞌreversedꞌ with little change of meaning.
Geist (2007) proposes that specificational sentences are reversed predicational sentences, the predicate comes as the XP1, while the XP2 is referential.
7 In Kipsigis specificational clauses exemplified in (7a-c), NP1 is a predicate and NP2 is the subject, a referential expression.Mikkelsen (2005) postulates that in some languages (such as English), NP1 in specificational sentences is universally topical (discourse-old), that means it is accomplished by putting NP1 into canonical position.
In specificational copular sentences, the postcopular phrase is used referentially rather than predicatively or attributively: instead of predicating a property of the entities 'what I ate' and 'the winner', these entities are identified as 'a cake' and 'John', as in sentence (7d and e).According to Higgins (1979) a specificational sentences consist of two parts, a variable part and a value part, and their semantic function is to identify the referent of the variable part.
The kind of copular sentences exemplified by (7) has been known as ꞌspecificationalꞌ since the classic work of Higgins (1973).As described by Higgins, this kind of copular sentences, the second noun phrase, NP2, provides the ꞌspecificationꞌ of the individual described by the first noun phrase, NP1 typically an attributive definite NP.Higgins refers to the NP1 as a ꞌsuperscriptional NPꞌ functioning very much like the heading of list which may in these sentences have just one item.
As exemplified in sentences (7a-e), Kipsigis does have inversion around the copula, while agreeing with Partee (1999) that the subject of the specificational sentences in NP1 is converted to NP2.
In specificational sentences, we can reverse the order of subjects and complements as in (8a and b), become cannot be used as in (8 c), and the paraphrase with following is possible as in ( 8 thief: John The following person is the thief: John.Sentence (8a) is a specificational sentence.This sentence can be reversed, where the subject and complement change position as shown in sentence 8 (b), when reversed it becomes a predicational clause.The paraphrase with following is possible as in (8d).Thus, Kipsigis specificational sentences behave in the same way as their English counterparts.
The presence of ꞌkoꞌ is not obligatory in Kipsigis specificational sentences.In present tenses, copula can be dropped as shown in example 9 below; Specificational copula clause has a fixed topicfocus structure in which the subject is always a topic and the predicate expression is always focus.
In Kipsigis specificational clause, the predicative DP moves to Spec-TP to satisfy the EPP feature.
This structure illustrates the derivation of specificational clause below.from Kenya John is a Kenyan Analysis of these sentences shows that there is a radical difference between the equative sentence and the predicational sentence in Kipsigis.The predicational sentence in (6a) ascribes the property to the referent noun phrase whereas the equatives sentence in (6b) basically says that the first and the second noun phrase share the same referent.It is difficult to distinguish between a predicative and equative sentence in Kipsigis as both use a similar construction and both require the copular ꞌKoꞌ.Borsley (2005) discusses equative sentences and their syntactic structure in his book "Syntax: Theory and Analysis."He argues that equative sentences involve a special type of copular structure that is distinct from predicative constructions.Borsley suggests that equative sentences are formed by merging two noun phrases in a copular structure, resulting in a single unit of the same category as the two merged elements.He also notes that equative sentences cannot be analysed as syntactically inverted predications, as neither expression functions as a predicate.Borsley's study provides a detailed analysis of the syntactic structure and properties of equative sentences.
In the equative sentences, pattern involves a simple copula ꞌam/is/are which is equivalent to ꞌkoꞌ in Kipsigis.Examples of equative sentences below.In sentences (13) the complement of the copula describes the ꞌcategorial membershipꞌ of the subject.In Kipsigis, when the copula is not present, no equative relation holds.Equative sentences involve two elements of the same categoryspecifically two DPs.The second DP in equational sentences (the predicate) is a definite NP (i.e., a name, a pronoun, a demonstrative NP, or a definite description).
Kipsigis equative sentences whose predicate is a definite NP has a more complex structure than the predicational sentence whose predicate is a NP, AP, or PP.Choueiri (2016) proposes that the structure of equational sentences involves an extra functional phrase (FP) located between TP and PredP as shown in structure (4), The structure below shows an underlying structure of equative copula clause (4).(b & d) shows that the copula element can be dropped and the sentences remain grammatical.

Identificational Clause
Identificational clauses can also be used as responses to questions for more information about an individual.

John?
Ngo-no-ton? John? reli-sg-that John?Who is that?
In sentence (18), it is imagined that the prior mention of the name John was not clear and it was not enough to satisfy the speaker, hence lead to the request for more information.
The characteristics of Identificational sentences include: that the reversed order is possible, that the sentences do not allow become as the main verb, and that this type can be paraphrased with following.(19a) counts as an Identificational sentence, based on the referential properties of the subject and the complement.(19b) in which the order of the subject and the complement is reversed is grammatical.From sentence 19 d it is clear that the copula can be replace by 'following' but the sentence becomes ungrammatical when paraphrased with 'become' as in 19 (c).
It is widely noted that some languages can drop the copula element, comprehensive account of distribution and licensing of copula dropping was used in this study to test the applicability of copula element in Kipsigis.From this study, Kipsigis can drop copula only in present tense for predicational, Specificational and Identificational clauses but not with Equative clauses.
In Kipsigis copula clauses, inversion can be used as a distinguishing feature between predicational clauses and other types of copula clauses.It is noted that Kipsigis predicational clause do not allow inversion of the two XP members it involves, but all other types of copula clauses do.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, Kipsigis has different types of copula clauses namely; Predicational, Specificational, Equatives and Identificational clauses.All these types use the copula ꞌko" to link the subject and predicate, in the form (XP1 COP XP2).A syntactical analysis of Kipsigis copula clauses was carried out using Functional Category Hypothesis (FCH).In this analysis, the Pred head, which is a functional category, relates a subject to a predicate.It takes the predicative expression XP as its complement and the subject DP as its specifier.From this study it suggests then, that the understanding to be drawn from copular clause is that it is incorrect to characterise binding phenomena in terms of a particular syntactic configuration which must or cannot hold between two NPs.
a & c) shows the presence of copula element in specificational sentences while sentence 9 (b & d) shows that the copula element can be dropped and the sentences remain grammatical.
poss.1sgYou will not be my friend In equative sentences as shown in (12) above, the copula ꞌkoꞌ denotes the equative relation between the subject and the complement of the copula.
if both subject and predicate DPs of the same category remain within PredP, then the two DPs cannot be linearised and hence the derivation will crash.The following structures 15(a & b) shows the derivation of Kipsigis equative copula clauses.the subject of FP, not the predicate complement, always raises to SPEC-TP to satisfy the EPP feature.The subject of the SC always raises to SPEC-TP.The DP in situ obtains accusative case.

Table 1 : Types of Kipsigis Copula Clauses
peculiar classification of copula clauses.