Talk:ば

ば form of the copula

As we know, the copula that comes after -na adjectives and nouns has two forms:

• Contracted form: だ、だった、だろう、で、です、でした、でしょう、…
• Uncontracted form: である、であった、であろう、であり、であります、でありました、でありましょう、…

The uncontracted form is used in formal style (like when making a definition) or when you need to insert particles like は、も、さえ、….

The question is, what is the ば form of the copula?

Most textbooks I have used simply tell you to change the だ to であれば, as if であれば is used as both the contracted form and the uncontracted form. But according to Samuel E. Martin's A Reference Grammar of Japanese, the contracted form is なら(ば). This is a bit confusing, because I've always thought of なら(ば) as a sentence pattern reduced from …のなら(ば), which means "if it is that" and is quite different from the other three consequential conditionals (ば、たら、と).

Which do you think is right? How should we explain the ば form of -na adjectives and nouns? (Notifying Eirikr, TAKASUGI Shinji, Atitarev, Poketalker, Cnilep, Huhu9001): --2409:894C:3C16:2263:3581:8EFA:260E:908A 17:42, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

It seems to me the two forms merged:

	だ	である	する	たかい
+ ば	ならば → なら	であれば (→ でありゃ)	すれば (→ すりゃ)	たかければ (→ たかけりゃ) (→ たかきゃ)
+ のだ + ば	なのならば → なのなら → なら	であるのならば → であるのなら → であるんなら → であるなら	するのならば → するのなら → するんなら → するなら (→ すんなら)	たかいのならば → たかいのなら → たかいんなら → たかいなら

— TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 03:17, 7 May 2021 (UTC)