How BE verbs turned into tense and emphasis
What is it about?
In some languages of the Dene/Athapaskan family of North America, copulas (BE verbs) have turned into grammatical functional words. In these languages, some copulas have become tense markers while others have become markers of clausal focus. I propose that the kinds of predicates introduced by the copulas have determined their development into different kinds of grammatical markers.
Why is it important?
Copulas frequently become grammaticalized in the languages of the world. It is also well known that in languages with multiple-copula systems, such as Spanish and Portuguese, different copulas become grammaticalized in different ways. This paper proposes a principled motivation for this process in the Dene languages of North America, raising the possibility that it may be responsible for similar differences in copula grammaticalization in other languages as well.