| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
 Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:13 pm Post subject: Anticipatory 'it' question |
 |
|
I'm going to be teaching anticpatory 'it':
It is raining.
It is possible that I will be late tomorrow.
I googled it using 'anticipatory it' and all I get is 'anticipatory set'. Does this have a different name that would give me what I want?
(What I'm looking for is a good way to explain to students when we need to use 'it' in the subject position when it really isn't the subject.) |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Dummy subject.
| Quote: |
| When we use the words it and there to begin a sentence without a referent (a noun the pronoun is referring to), we�re using a dummy subject. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
suneater
Joined: 04 Dec 2007
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:45 pm Post subject: Re: Anticipatory 'it' question |
|
|
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
I'm going to be teaching anticpatory 'it':
It is raining.
It is possible that I will be late tomorrow.
I googled it using 'anticipatory it' and all I get is 'anticipatory set'. Does this have a different name that would give me what I want?
(What I'm looking for is a good way to explain to students when we need to use 'it' in the subject position when it really isn't the subject.) |
I don't think you need to give this function of 'it' a grammatical name (perhaps I say this because I don't know it!) - I just tell students that we often front with 'it' with expressions of time, distance, weather, temperature, and tide (although there are prob. other instances):
There is the also the 'introductory it', which we employ with the following sentence types (among others) :
CLEFTS It's Friday when we have a spelling test. (emphasising 'Friday')
INFINITIVE SUBJECTS It's easy to judge others. (=to judge others is easy)
CLAUSE SUBJECTS It's hilarious that she stood him up (=that she stood him up is hilarious)
Generally, it seems we use 'it' in the initial position either when we want to shift focus (as with clefts), or when the subject is of a length and complexity that our sentences become unwieldly in the S-V-O (or rather, subject + complement) format (as with infinitives & clauses)
However, I'm probably off topic by now! Good luck with your lesson 
Last edited by suneater on Wed Feb 06, 2008 3:14 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 2:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Thanks, guys! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 4:39 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Sure! I'd never heard of the technical term ("dummy subject") until I took my second Linguistics course. You have to love a science that has technical terms like that and "r-colored." |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
suneater
Joined: 04 Dec 2007
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 6:39 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| CentralCali wrote: |
| Sure! I'd never heard of the technical term ("dummy subject") until I took my second Linguistics course. You have to love a science that has technical terms like that and "r-colored." |
I was just flicking through my MA ling books and found CentralCali's 'dummy subject' although in this particular book it is largely referred to as the 'pro-subject it'. That seems to be the trouble with this language of ours - multiple terms for exactly the same thing! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
icnelly
Joined: 25 Jan 2006
Location: Bucheon
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 5:24 am Post subject: |
|
|
AKA an expletive
"Doing Grammar" by Max Morenberg.
Add another one to the list... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 2:44 pm Post subject: |
|
|
It's beginning to look like every grammar teacher in the universe has a different term for this. I googled the ones suggested so far and didn't find anything, but one of them included another term: IMPERSONAL SUBJECTS, so add that to the list.
 http://esl.about.com/od/grammaradvanced/a/g_impersonal.htm
Once I found that, I found some other information.
Again, thanks. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
