Re: Copulae and the origin of IE *?es-

--- In cybalist@..., "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...> wrote:

>
> In fact, I have
> a thought that *?es- might have started out as a conjugationless
> copula, originally conjugated only in an unmarked
> 3rd person singular as Old IE *?es, basically signifying "there is"
> like Mandarin /you3/. At first, it could be optionally added to
> the sentence, much like Russian /est'/, if I recall.

/jest'/ is not optional - it's rather prohibited in most situations,
the only exception being archaizing style of the math/physics
textbooks (/bissektrisa jest' pr'amaja, .../. Your description mostly
fits for Lithuanian /yra`/.

Sergei