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The sentence in question is

```

    それはとってもいい話【はなし】だ。
    
```

Which is translated as "That's a really nice story". I don't understand what だ
is doing at the end though. 話 seems to mean story with or without it and
Google translate gives me the same translation for the full sentence
regardless. [だ doesn't seem to be a particle
either.](http://thejapanesepage.com/w/index.php?title=Particles) So what does
it mean here and does it act on just the noun or the whole sentence?
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2014-04-05T07:05:24.913
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question
syntax copula
What does だ mean at the end of a sentence or following a noun
This だ is a copula. It's a plain form of the copula - copula has similar forms
as verbs. You may know its polite form as well - です (warning though - です is
not only a copula, it may also be just a marker of polite speech level).
それはとってもいい話です。 is the polite version of the same sentence.

Copula doesn't really act on the noun, rather it links the subject それ with the
predicative expression とってもいい話 and gives it a meaning of equivalence (in this
case): This **is** a very good story. Japanese copula has similar meaning to
the English verb "to be" (as in X is Y meaning X = Y or Y describes X).

それはとってもいい話 on its own is not a regular sentence in Japanese as it doesn't have
a predicate.. Copula can be used as a predicate to finish off sentences as in
this example. You could change this sentence to use いい as a predicate and not
use copula as in

その話はとってもいい。

Just to clarify: there are sentences (minor sentences) without predicates that
are used commonly in casual speech, newspapers, titles, etc. Predicates,
including copula, can be omitted in those kinds of sentences but cannot be in
a regular (major) sentence.
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answer