To Be—and Not “Being”—or, The Names of the Verb

This chapter takes a brief look at the most important schools of thought over the centuries about the verb to be. Sifting through Western linguistic tradition, it is possible to find at least three schools of thought that regarded the verb to be, so to speak, as the name of three different concepts closely dependent upon the manner in which their contemporary linguistics interpreted the nature of language in general: as the name of tense, as the name of affirmation, and as the name of identity. Understanding how the verb to be has been described in language also means understanding what the general perspective is from which the latter is viewed—a unique opportunity.

Anatomy of a Sentence

This chapter reconstructs the environment in which the verb to be will be understood in a new way. It identifies three radical changes, conceptually distinct but not completely unrelated, that come into play when looking at language from the structuralist perspective. First, if what matters are the relationships, elements that have the same relationships to other elements of the system must be considered equivalent and, in principle, they can be exchanged (the commutation principle). Second, given an incompletely filled grid that combines certain properties, if the grid is correct, it will lead to the discovery of new objects that could fill the empty grid spaces (the retrieval principle). Third, not all possible combinations of primitive elements are used in every language (the redundancy principle).

Epilogues between Language and Necessity

Questions raised by the brief history of the verb can be grouped into three distinct research areas: questions about the formal mechanisms that interact in structuring sentences; questions about how these mechanisms are implemented physically in the brain; questions about what these sentences tell us in general about natural language as a biologically determined phenomenon, and ultimately about the position of humankind itself in nature. This chapter attempts to identify possible questions for each of the abovementioned lines of research, taking into account what has been learned in the journey through the history of the verb to be. The discussions cover the formal properties of grammar, the neuropsychological mechanisms underlying the formal principles of grammar, and evolutionary aspects of language.

The Strange Case of Verbs without Subjects

This chapter analyzes some special verbs, that is, verbs that do not have a subject. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 3.1 looks at a central structural property of natural languages, involving a special type of syntactic movement called “raising.” Section 3.2 analyzes the verb to be and examines the main stages that led to the canonical theory of the 1980s. Finally, Section 3.3 shows how letting go of a sentence theory axiom allows the resolution of the anomaly of sentences with the verb to be, leading to a unified theory of copular sentences and ultimately to new questions about the general architecture of syntax in natural languages.

Afterword

This chapter presents some final thoughts from the author. It argues that no one should let themselves be intimidated by the knowledge of others, be it scientific knowledge or knowledge of any other kind. The great scholar Abelard—who was so interested in the verb to be—wrote about language research: “In fact, the perfection of ancient authors is not such that the doctrine would not also need our studies; nor can science grow to such a degree amongst us mortals that it cannot continue to increase.” Thus, there is room for anyone who wants to take part—and naturally, room for mistakes as well.