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cop: copula

A copula is the relation between the complement of a copular verb and the copular verb essere (only). The copula be is not treated as the head of a clause, but rather as the dependent of a lexical predicate, as exemplified below.

I cinque sarebbero tutti immigrati clandestini
nsubj(immigrati, cinque)
cop(immigrati, sarebbero)
Per questo sono ambiziosi
cop(ambiziosi, sono)
Secondo l' Onu sono 200 mila le persone
nsubj(persone, mila)
compound(mila, 200)
cop(mila, sono)

This analysis is generally not adopted when the predicate is a prepositional phrase, in which case the nominal part of the prepositional phrase is the head of the clause, with a few exception in case of idiomatic forms, such as in forma in shape, expressing a property.

La scultura è di il pachistano Hamad Butt
nsubj(è, scultura)
case(Hamad, di)
det(Hamad, il)
nmod(è, Hamad)
amod(Hamad, pachistano)
name(Hamad, Butt)

If the copula is accompanied by other verbal auxiliaries (e.g. for tense), they are taken as dependents of the lexical predicate:

Non venne mai chiarito quale formazione era stata responsabile
det(formazione, quale)
nsubj(responsabile, formazione)
aux(responsabile, era)
cop(responsabile, stata)

Treebank Statistics (UD_Italian)

This relation is universal.

2767 nodes (1%) are attached to their parents as cop.

2153 instances of cop (78%) are right-to-left (child precedes parent). Average distance between parent and child is 1.66750993856162.

The following 8 pairs of parts of speech are connected with cop: it-pos/ADJ-it-pos/VERB (1076; 39% instances), it-pos/NOUN-it-pos/VERB (872; 32% instances), it-pos/PRON-it-pos/VERB (691; 25% instances), it-pos/PROPN-it-pos/VERB (42; 2% instances), it-pos/VERB-it-pos/VERB (33; 1% instances), it-pos/ADV-it-pos/VERB (32; 1% instances), it-pos/NUM-it-pos/VERB (19; 1% instances), it-pos/X-it-pos/VERB (2; 0% instances).

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1	È	essere	VERB	V	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	cop	_	_
2	vero	vero	ADJ	A	Gender=Masc|Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
3	,	,	PUNCT	FF	_	2	punct	_	_
4	tutti	tutto	PRON	PI	Gender=Masc|Number=Plur|PronType=Ind	7	nsubjpass	_	_
5	possiamo	potere	AUX	VM	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	essere	essere	AUX	VA	VerbForm=Inf	7	auxpass	_	_
7	sostituiti	sostituire	VERB	V	Gender=Masc|Number=Plur|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	parataxis	_	_
8	.	.	PUNCT	FS	_	2	punct	_	_

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1	Questa	questo	DET	DD	Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	det	_	_
2	ricchezza	ricchezza	NOUN	S	Gender=Fem|Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	è	essere	VERB	V	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	tutta	tutto	PRON	PI	Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	5	nmod	_	_
5	apparenza	apparenza	NOUN	S	Gender=Fem|Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	.	.	PUNCT	FS	_	5	punct	_	_

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1	È	essere	AUX	VA	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
2	stata	essere	VERB	V	Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	3	cop	_	_
3	quello	quello	PRON	PD	Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	0	root	_	_
4	che	che	PRON	PR	PronType=Rel	7	dobj	_	_
5	ci	ci	PRON	PC	PronType=Clit	7	expl	_	_
6	si	si	PRON	PC	Person=3|PronType=Clit	7	expl:impers	_	_
7	attendeva	attendere	VERB	V	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	3	acl:relcl	_	_
8	:	:	PUNCT	FC	_	3	punct	_	_


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