--- title: "The two be 's of English — paper by Payne (2013)" description: "He then proposes that English does have a lexical be , but the dividing line is semantic rather than copular versus non-copular. 17 references." authors: ["Thomas Payne"] year: 2013 venue: "Applied Research on English Language 2" source: "http://are.ui.ac.ir/article_15468_9f551807683f143c670f490a304a16f4.pdf" licence: "CC BY-NC-ND (journal licence per DOAJ; Applied Research on English Language)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/payne-2013-two-s-english/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/payne-2013-two-s-english/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2013](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2013/page/2/) / The two be 's of English # The two be 's of English **Authors:** Thomas Payne · **Year:** 2013 · **Venue:** Applied Research on English Language 2 · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-ND (journal licence per DOAJ; Applied Research on English Language)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.22108/are.2013.15468) · [PDF](http://are.ui.ac.ir/article_15468_9f551807683f143c670f490a304a16f4.pdf) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2146687570) **Citations:** 1 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) ## Summary Payne examines how *be* is used in Contemporary English. He questions the textbook split between a "lexical" copula (*She is a doctor*) and an "auxiliary" *be* (*She is waiting*). Using standard morphosyntactic diagnostics, he argues that the copular use is a fully fledged core auxiliary. These diagnostics are cliticization and the NICE properties (Negation, Inversion, Code, Emphasis). On every test, copular *be* behaves like modals, *have* and progressive or passive *be*. True linking verbs like *seem*, *become* and *resemble* behave the opposite way and need *do*-support. He then proposes that English does have a lexical *be*, but the dividing line is semantic rather than copular versus non-copular. That lexical *be* is an active, agentive verb, roughly "act (like)". It patterns with ordinary verbs, and for some speakers it is even inflected regularly. The broader consequence is that an English clause does not need a lexical verb, only Inflection. In copular clauses the complement carries the predication. The author argues this view simplifies both grammatical theory and English teaching. ## Key points - **Diagnostic battery:** the tests are the NICE properties from Huddleston & Pullum (2002, pp. 92–112) plus contraction onto a preceding host. - Contraction works with locative fronting too: *In the kitchen's a sink*. - Lexical verbs fail contraction: *\*The teacher's a Jaguar* is impossible for "has". - **Copula versus linking verbs:** - Copular *be* passes all tests without *do*: *Is she a doctor?* is fine, *\*Does she be a doctor?* is not. - *Seem*, *become*, *resemble* and *turn* require *do*, so they are lexical main verbs. - **Second claim (active *be*):** - Agentive *be* is a separate lexical verb, paraphrasable as *act/act like*. - Some speakers give it regular forms, *be's* and *beed*. - It groups with lexical linking verbs, not with the auxiliary. - **Clause requirement:** the paper replaces "every sentence needs a lexical verb" with "every sentence needs Inflection". Copular, passive and progressive constructions are unified as taking auxiliary *be*. - **Cross-linguistic and corpus notes:** - Mandarin splits the functions of *be* across *shì*, *zài* and *yŏu*. - Spanish splits them across *ser*, *estar* and *haber*. - The British National Corpus is consulted for copula omission in *whence* constructions. ## Interesting ideas - Categories are assigned by behaviour across a fixed set of syntactic tests (negation placement, subject inversion, tag/ellipsis, verum stress, contraction), not by meaning or tradition, which makes the classification checkable and reproducible. - In a copular clause the predicating element is the nominal, adjectival or locative complement, while *be* only hosts tense and agreement. This is a clean division of labour between content and inflection. - One surface form, *be*, splits into a stative auxiliary and an active agentive verb ("act like"), and the split is motivated by stativity versus activity rather than syntactic slot. - Each language divides up the range of *be* differently: Mandarin and Spanish carve identity, location, existence and temporary versus permanent attribution into separate copulas. That gives a ready semantic inventory for what English *be* is doing. - The paper separates "ungrammatical" from "infelicitous in context" and distinguishes verum focus (stressing the truth of the whole proposition) from VP-only focus, so judgments are graded rather than binary. ## For Mova How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests: - **I1** (tree): The NICE battery could serve as a deterministic check on whether a token labelled AUX or cop really behaves that way, flagging parser outputs or converted treebanks where *seem*/*become* got auxiliary treatment. - **I2** (frames): Frame building can take the predicate from the complement (e.g. a "doctor" attribute or an "in kitchen" location) and read tense and polarity off the copula, rather than inventing an empty "be" frame. - **I3** (world): When building entity states, *be* should normally yield a state or attribute, but an agentive reading (*he is being silly*) should yield an action event with an agent, which matters for event ordering and responsibility. - **I4** (back): Translation through the meta-world can store the specific relation (equative, locative, existential, temporary attribute) instead of a generic "be", then choose *ser*/*estar*/*haber* or *shì*/*zài*/*yŏu* correctly on output. - **I5** (learn): Negative controls in evaluation could include both starred and merely odd variants, e.g. *\*Does she be a doctor?* versus a pragmatically off emphatic reply, to test whether models rank them appropriately rather than just reject both. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* ## Institutions - [SIL Global](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/ngos/sil-global/) — Nonprofit, Dallas, United States · 4 works · 344 citations 📚 Shelves (2): [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 9,296 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 9,206 works 🧭 Topics (1): [English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/) · 1,373 works ## Cite Cite as: Thomas Payne. 2013. The two be 's of English. Applied Research on English Language 2. The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @inproceedings{payne2013two, title = {{The two be 's of English}}, author = {Thomas Payne}, booktitle = {Applied Research on English Language 2}, year = {2013}, doi = {10.22108/are.2013.15468}, url = {https://doi.org/10.22108/are.2013.15468} } ``` - [← previous Syntactic and Semantic Rules in Old English Adjective Formation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/escarza-2013-syntactic-semantic-rules-old-english/) - [next → Word Order in Epigraphic Gǝ’ǝz](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/bulakh-2013-word-order-epigraphic-gz/) - [↑ back to papers of 2013](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2013/page/2/) ## References 17 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. Azar, B. (2002). Understanding and using English grammar (3rd edn.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Longman. 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