Nominal sentence

The term nominal sentence can refer to two different phenomena:

a sentence with a predicate consisting of the copula to be plus a predicative, like Bob is a postman.^[1]
a sentence with a predicate lacking a finite verb, like The more – the merrier. Usually, the missing verb is understood to be a form of to be, as seen in colloquial English: You from out of town? (see Zero copula).^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]

Examples of sentences lacking a finite verb

While nominal sentences are rare in English, they are far more common in certain other languages:

Russian: Вот человек, потерявший надежду. "Here is a man who has lost hope", literally "Here a man who has lost hope"
Arabic: هذا الكاتبُ مشهورٌ (hāḏā 'l-kātibu mašhūrun) "This writer is famous", literally "This writer famous"
Hebrew: המלך ערום (ha-melex 'erom) "The king [is] naked"

Nominal sentences were also common in the old Indo-European languages:^[4]

Ancient Greek: ἐμοὶ δ'ἄχος (emoì d'áchos) "and to me [there is] pain"
Latin: ūna salūs victīs "one salvation [is/remains] for the conquered"
Old Persian: manā pitā Vištāspa "my father [is] Vištāspa"
Tocharian A: tsraṣiñ waste wrasaśśi "the strong [are] the protection of the creatures"

Nominal sentences are common in American newspaper headlines:

And in English play-by-play sports announcing:

^ ^a ^b (in German) Duden. Deutsches Universalwörterbuch, Mannheim/Leipzig/Wien/Zürich: Dudenverlag, 2007, ISBN 3-411-05506-5
^ Bußmann, Hadumod (2002) (in German), Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft, Stuttgart: Kröner, ISBN 3-520-45203-0
^ Glück, Helmut, ed. (2005) (in German), Metzler Lexikon Sprache, Stuttgart/Weimar: Kröner, ISBN 978-3-476-02056-7
^ ^a ^b Fortson, Benjamin W. (2004), Indo-European Language and Culture, Blackwell Publishing, p. 143, ISBN 1-4051-0316-7