A language with zero copulas could easily take present participle morphology and put it on nouns used as complements whenever they denote a temporary or non-essential quality:
man captain-PCPL = the man is a captain
man cousin me.dat = the man is my cousin
The latter is a non-temporary quality: being cousins is mostly a fixed quality. Let's extend this idea a bit further: certain nouns that are rather unchangeable can be intensified:
she mother = she is a mother
she mothering = she has recently become a mother, and thus has more mothery obligations than usual
We further extend this so such nouns turn into regular nouns.
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