Confusion Causing Copulas

English is terribly disorganised in the way that I employs the verb to be. It is found so pervasively that it drove me to frustration trying to sort out its equivalents. Thankfully, Mandarin has more clearly demarcated words for the functions of the English copula; that helped me think a little more clearly.

To begin with, I'll list the numerous functions of this versatile, illogical verb.
1. Literal : When we use to be to mean to exist - There is a sun.
2. To name objects - This spherical globe of weak nuclear reactions is a sun.
3. To classify objects - The sun is a star.
4. To locate objects - The sun is in space.
5. An auxiliary - The sun is shining.
6. As a preposition - The sun is bright.

I spent an inordinate amount of time deciding how to deal with this grammatical swiss army knife and this is what I've come up with. I haven't eliminated the copula entirely, I still think it is useful to have, just that it could be more specific, similar to the Mandarin words 在 and 是 which both serve as copulas in their respective domains.

Proceeding function by function :
1. Literal
This was clear enough for me, come up with a verb which means to be, but reserve its use for stating the existence of various nouns. The word I've picked is 'eweyo'. So simply put, 'saton eweto' means the sun exists/there is a sun.

2. To name objects
This was a little more confusing. I ended up using a similar mechanic for both functions 2 and 3, have a verb in the sentence. In this case, the verb is 'areyo' meaning to name. Instead of saying - This is the sun - it would be expressed along the lines of - We name that as the sun. The final sentence looks like this : 'üt ricos areto ripen ao saton'. 'üt' is a plural marker, 'ricos' is the first person pronoun, 'ripen' is the third person demonstrative and 'ao' is a copula for naming and categorising.

3. To classify objects
The mechanic for this is similar to function 2. The verb to use is 'oreyo' meaning to classify and the sentence structure works the same way. We classify the sun as a star. The sentence comes across as 'üt ricos oreto saton ao xatun'. This would also be the function that clauses like This is the reason come under.

4. To locate objects

The Eldawnian mechanic for locating nouns uses the verb 'idiyo', meaning to find. It works in a similar way as points 2 and 3, but uses the distinct copula 'id'. I don't have a word for space yet, since it wouldn't make sense in a society that doesn't have a concept of outer space, so the sentence that will be translated is We find the sun in the sky. This turns into 'üt ricos idito saton id ben'

5. An auxiliary
This was already settled in the previous post, where the continuous tense is already indicated by the tense marker 'set'. The sentence - The sun is shining, would be analogous to 'saton set ateto'.

6. As a preposition
This would employ the verb 'ureyo to describe' and works in a similar sense to the other verb substitutions seen for earlier functions, but requires no copula whatsoever. The sentence - The sun is bright - would be 'ureto saton atecu'.

These are the formalised standard ways that these various types of sentences would be structured. However, in colloquial speech, it would be normal to drop parts of the sentence and to contract words. This will, I suppose, be incorporated into the degree of formality depending on the social context of the conversation or speech, something which I have yet to examine in detail.