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About です, では, and ある...

sohcahtoa

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I was looking over the conjugations for iru, aru, and desu, and something occurred to me.. but I can't find any confirmation online. Is です a contraction of ではあります?
Casual: だ
Polite: です
Negative: ではない
P.Negative: ではありません
Past: だった
P.Past: でした
N.Past: ではなかった
P.N.Past: ではありませんでした
All of these seem to be, in some way, a combination of では and an inflection of ある.
Is this what です really is?
 
There exists some hypotheses (でそう, でございます, でござります, であります, でおわす, etc.) regarding the etymology of です, but there is no established theory yet. です is a relatively new word. It started being commonly used as a polite copula in the end of Edo period or Meiji period.

です(デス)とは - コトバンク

です[助動]の意味 - 国語辞書 - goo辞書
 
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