Il verbo sostantivale tá e la copula is in irlandese moderno: una rassegna e un'analisi di corpora

This paper aims to outline the behaviour of the two verbs 'to be' in Modern Irish: the copula is and the substantive verb tá. In all languages which have a verb 'to be', its behaviour differs from that of other verbs in many ways including word order, agreement and the difficulty of determining its semantic interpretation. Irish is no exceptionand to this it adds the existence of two verbs 'to be' and the specialized function that they seem to have acquired. The existence of the substantive verb alongside the copula since earliest written records is what left copula free to specialize its functions to expressing relationships regardless to tense and aspect and later and later on to developing as focus marker: the function it has today. All this is supported by an analysis of data belonging to two different registers ( a short story by Máirtín Ó Cadhain and a collection of oral texts recorded by Stockam in the parish of Achill, Co. Mayo) from which it is clear, that the two verbs have specialised inherent functions, but also that there has been a continuous trend, visible above all in the spoken language, illustrating the gradual taking over of the copular functions by the substantive verb.