Generalised symbol copying

[pipliggins]

Description

Please include a summary of the change and which issue is fixed. Please also include relevant motivation and context. List any dependencies that are required for this change.

Fixes #3798

Type of change

Please add a line in the relevant section of CHANGELOG.md to document the change (include PR #) - note reverse order of PR #s. If necessary, also add to the list of breaking changes.

• [ ] New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• [ ] Optimization (back-end change that speeds up the code)
• [ ] Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)

Key checklist:

• [ ] No style issues: $ pre-commit run (or $ nox -s pre-commit) (see CONTRIBUTING.md for how to set this up to run automatically when committing locally, in just two lines of code)
• [ ] All tests pass: $ python run-tests.py --all (or $ nox -s tests)
• [ ] The documentation builds: $ python run-tests.py --doctest (or $ nox -s doctests)

You can run integration tests, unit tests, and doctests together at once, using $ python run-tests.py --quick (or $ nox -s quick).

Further checks:

• [ ] Code is commented, particularly in hard-to-understand areas
• [ ] Tests added that prove fix is effective or that feature works