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In「である」、my previous understanding was that the「で」functions the same way as the "method/means" particle「で」by making everything that came before it attached to「で」and that「ある」is just regular「ある」just like usual.

However, I have been told elsewhere that this「で」is a copula. This begs the question as to why it is before「ある」。 Furthermore, whenever I see a chart of です conjugations, I don't see「で」on it. So, is the「で」functioning as a copula for the preceding portion of its clause? If so, then why is it not「だ」？

I also have a comprehensive Japanese Linguistics book here, but its explanation (while extremely thorough like a legal text) does not describe how it works.

DeityofAutomation
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    Related: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/12097/etymology-of-the-copula-%e3%81%a0 / https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/18085/can-the-%e3%81%a7%e3%81%82%e3%82%8b-copula-be-explained-as-%e3%81%a7-particle-%e3%81%82%e3%82%8b-to-exist-i-e-to-exist/18087#18087 – user3856370 Jan 27 '21 at 22:49
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    Does this answer your question? [Etymology of the copula だ](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/12097/etymology-of-the-copula-%e3%81%a0) – Eiríkr Útlendi Jan 28 '21 at 19:02
  • @EiríkrÚtlendi While that is useful information, unfortunately it does not describe how it works grammatically. Based upon that, I can only update my understanding to be that the copula「で」functions to create an adverbial or adjectival phrase out of everything that came before it and that「ある」functions as usual. Is this correct? – DeityofAutomation Jan 28 '21 at 21:29
  • @DeityofAutomation user3856370's second link may actually have more of the type of information you're looking for in its answer [here](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/18085/can-the-%e3%81%a7%e3%81%82%e3%82%8b-copula-be-explained-as-%e3%81%a7-particle-%e3%81%82%e3%82%8b-to-exist-i-e-to-exist/18087#18087). That said, I think it's going to be hard to get much more than etymology because it's pretty hard to break modern である up into pieces. If you really want a novel answer, it would help to see your source for the idea that `で` is a copula, as opposed to `である` in its entirety. – Mindful Jan 29 '21 at 01:26
  • @Mindful It's a very definitive and comprehensive source, and it has thousands of pages. I might have just not found it yet, so I'll keep searching. – DeityofAutomation Jan 29 '21 at 06:11

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Broadly, で is just the conjunctive form of だ・です, as in "[statement 1] is, and [statement 2]". The ある after that, if used to end the sentence, is just the copular ある: "is, am, are, will be" etc. This kind of usage is rather stuffy and formal, and archaic.

In most cases in modern Japanese, you'll see である not at the end of a sentence, but in cases where the "is-ness" of whatever came before is used attributively to modify something else. 犬【いぬ】だ "[it] is a dog" → 犬【いぬ】[で]{●}[あ]{●}[る]{●}動物【どうぶつ】 "the animal that is a dog". So one way of thinking about である is as the 連体形【れんたいけい】 or attributive form of だ・です.

Eiríkr Útlendi
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