Job Discussion Forums

[sheikh radlinrol]

If somebody knocks on your door, you might shout �Who is it?� bot not not �Who are you?�. If I show you an old photo and ask �Do you know who this is?� You don�t know and I say, �It�s your grandmother�, but not �She is your grandmother�. If we disagree about who the President of the USA is, I say it�s Barak Obama.
What are the rules about it for people? The reason I ask is that one one of my students here in Spain has been incorrectly corrected by his teacher who insists that it�s it for animals and blah, blah.

[johnslat]

Dear sheikh


"It" in your examples is what's called the "non-referential it."

Other examples" What time is it? It's raining

http://aclweb.org/anthology/P/P08/P08-1002.pdf

http://www.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/files/Kursmaterialien/Kuebler/Anaphor/pleonastic.pdf

(Full disclosure: It's all news to me, too )

Regards,
John

[fluffyhamster]

Regarding the photo, one could say any of this/that/it, but the good thing with 'it' though is that it is "deixically vague", which probably accounts for its wide 'dummy pronoun' use (oops or should that be 'non-referential' it, from the links that John's posted) in stating general facts and truths (as in those it=grandma photo, and Obama, examples). The doorknocking example is interesting, but the 'Who are you?' question would of course be too specific, as the asker can't yet see that the knocker is a person they don't recognize, i.e. one can only really address a person(s? "Good morning, we're Jehovah's Witnesses" LOL) as 'you' once one is speaking face-to-face rather than through a non-transparent barrier such as a door.

http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=10091

[wailing_imam]

dummy operator innit