It - Patterns

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Lecture 29

• It - Patterns

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• 29.1 Empty it and anticipatory it
• It may be useful to give a summary of the chief
  uses of empty it and anticipatory it.

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Empty itEmpty it does not refer to anything, as
distinguished from the third person singular,
neutral pronoun. It is meaningless and is
chiefly used as formal subject in sentences
denoting time, place, distance, and atmospheric
conditions.
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Empty it , as formal subject, also occurs in
sentences denoting a general situation, e.g.It
has fared well with him.It was dull when Mary
was away.
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Empty it also occurs in some idioms where it
functions as formal object or prepositional
complementation, e.g.You will catch it for
breaking the glasses.Jack has a hard time of it.
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2) Anticipatory itanticipatory it commonly
occurs in sentences with a nominal clause as
subject or object.
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The subject/ object clauses is usually shifted to
the end of the sentence, leaving the vacancy to
be filled in by an anticipatory it. The
extraposed subject / object may be a finite
clause or a non-finite clause.
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For this kind of subject/object, extraposition is
more frequent than its natural position, e.g.It
was not known whether there was gold left in the
mine.He made it clear that he didnt want to
speak to me.
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29.2 It as introductory word of cleft
sentences1) Cleft sentence definedA cleft
sentence is an emphatic construction with
non0referring it as formal subject.
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The general pattern of a cleft sentence is as
followsIt be focal element that/
who-clause
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A cleft sentence is commonly used to spotlight an
element of an ordinary statement.
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Generally speaking, except the predicator, almost
all the elements of a statement can be singled
out as the focal element .
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The predicator may be a simple form of the verb
be it may also be a complex verb phrase with a
form of the verb be as headwordIt was then that
he gave her a bag.It might have been then that
he gave her a bag.
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There are restrictions on the use of subject
complement as focal element, but in the case of
object complement, there is no such restriction,
e.g. He is intelligent.It is intelligent
that he is.
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2) Introductory it in cleft sentence vs.
anticipatory itThe introductory it of a cleft
sentence is functionally different from an
anticipatory it the introductory it does not
stand for any extraposed subject, while an
anticipatory it does.
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3)Pseudo-cleft sentencesIf we want to spotlight
the verb phrase, we will have to use what is
called pseudo-cleft sentence.
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I gave her a handbag.What I did was (to) give
her a handbag.He will be taking a plane to
Beijing.What he will be doing is taking a plane
to Beijing.He has given her a handbag.What he
has done is to give / give / given her a
handbag.
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Another type is composed of what clause be
noun phrasewhat he gave her was a handbag.A
handbag was what he gave her.