ABSTRACT
In English, the copulas “am,” “are,” and “is” can express at least two things. First, they are used to indicate equational expressions, i.e., something equals something. Examples of equational expressions include “John is a student” and “Hyundai is an automobile company.” Copulas are also used to indicate where something is located or that something exists, as in “there are Korean people” and “Honolulu is in Hawaii.” In Korean, two different words express these functions. For equational expressions, Korean uses the copula 이다 or 아니다 for negations. To express existence or location, Korean uses 있다 or 없다 for negation.
