ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some background information on what it includes under copula and provides a structural representation. It examines the change from unaccusative to copula and that of transitive to copula. The three verbs, sound, smell, and taste, are introduced as copulas and transitives in an independent development in Middle English. The chapter examines three unaccusative verbs that are reanalyzed as copulas: they change from V to Pred but keep the Theme with an inner aspect that is compatible with the original level of telicity/durativity. These are late Modern English examples but they may tell us how the reinterpretation of transitive as copula took place, namely through a middle-like structure, in which the Theme is the subject. There is a transitive origin to copulas as well; here the aspect remains the same but the experiencer theta-role disappears, e.g. with feel.
