The study proposes a compositional derivation of the meaning of copular sentences featuring noun and adjective complements. Copular sentences in Russian are compared with their counterparts in Spanish, German, and English. Russian and Spanish display a number of morpho-syntactic alternations that render the interaction between syntax and semantics in copular sentences more transparent, thus providing insights into range of typologically parameterized expression options accorded to copular sentences by single-language grammars.