Teaching the Japanese dummy:. La copula giapponese e il dummy da/desu

There is no consensus in linguistics about the status of da, desu and the other forms of their paradigm. Are they all copulas? Or, if not, which forms are copulas, and which forms are not, and why? The different answers seem to depend on the theoretical framework adopted, if the copula is to be considered a linker, a predicator, or a dummy carrier. Textbooks are not consistent either, some even equates desu to ‘be’. A new proposal is made here which (a) considers aru – and not da, desu or dearu – to be a copula, functioning as both a linker and a feature carrier; (b) treats the particle de expressing the copular complement in forms like -de aru as an Essive case marker, consistently with the presence in Japanese of a large number of copular constructions where a grammatical verb and a case marker co-occur; (c) assigns to the forms of the da/desu paradigm the role of pure dummy carriers, with no copular function, as it is evident in the so-called unagibun. These dummies are inserted after a “beheading” operation whereby the verb (copular aru as well) and the rightmost case marker (like de) are deleted.