Now I have seen people call だ the only copula, even excluding its adverbial or
attributive forms で and な (and seemingly の), with the argument that only
predicative copulas, which are necessary for predicative expressions, can be
called "copula".

Others include them in the term "copula" and simply differentiate between
["Conclusive" and
"Adnominal"](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/19180/are-%E3%81%AA-
and-%E3%81%A0-both-copula-verbs).

However I have not found a discussion on this site about the suffix that
follows the stem of adjectives in their 終止形, well, predicative form. It seems
to me, that this suffix, which can be inflected, works like a copula.

Some claim that in ...が綺麗(です) and ...が可愛い, there is a predication in both, but
in the second case, い is responsible, not any ommitted です, for which to use we
would have to nominalise the expression anyways: ...が可愛いのです/だ, although です has
sort of been accepted to use behind an adjective despite being technically
incorrect. In short: ～い = "to be"?

However, some things make me question this: A sentence doesn't need a
copula(call it a verb or not) OR verb to be grammatically correct, meaning, an
adjective in its 終止形 form is a [whole
sentence](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/97306/is-%E5%85%83%E6%B0%97-a-grammatical-
sentence-in-modern-japanes). But we cannot ommit the suffix.

But then again, attributively, we inflect い and don't add any だ-variant. This
argument depends on whether you think attributive versions of だ are even
"true" copula.

So, I am conflicted. Could you call い some kind of copula? Maybe a **suffix
with copulative properties?**

Any linking to a question which already answered this would be helpful, too.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-23T00:58:31.957
97337
2022-11-23T02:33:43.990
2022-11-23T02:33:43.990
54992
54992
question
particles copula
Could you call the い/i - suffix of adjectives a copula?
> Could you call the い/i - suffix of adjectives a copula?

## The short answer

No.

## The longer answer

A "[copula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copula_\(linguistics\))" is an
independent word used to link a subject with its predicate, in an "X **_is_**
Y" kind of relationship.

In Japanese, だ・です does this: it is an independent word, that explicitly states
that something **is**.

The ～い ending of an ''-i'' adjective, however, doesn't do this: it is not an
independent word, and it doesn't state that something **is** in general terms,
so much as that something is **the specific quality of that adjective**.

The ～い ending has predicative and attributive functions, but it is not a
copula.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-11-23T01:45:28.233
97338
2022-11-23T01:45:28.233
5229
97337
answer