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freshair313
Joined: 15 Nov 2005
Posts: 28
Location: China
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 Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 8:27 pm Post subject: A question about "it" |
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Hello Sir/Madam,
There is a sentense in an article:
"The most valuable find of all was the ship's log book, parts of which it was still possible to read."
My question is whether the word "it" can be omitted? And what element the word acts as in the sentense? Thank you. |
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LucentShade
Joined: 30 Dec 2003
Posts: 542
Location: Nebraska, USA
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| Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:27 am Post subject: Re: A question about "it" |
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| freshair313 wrote: |
Hello Sir/Madam,
There is a sentense in an article:
"The most valuable find of all was the ship's log book, parts of which it was still possible to read."
My question is whether the word "it" can be omitted? And what element the word acts as in the sentense? Thank you. |
You can omit "it," but you'd have to change the sentence a little bit: "parts of which were still possible to read." (in this sentence, "were" is used because "parts" is the subject.)
"It" is the subject of the expression "was possible," which is the main verb of the subordinate clause. If we write this as two sentences, we get: "The most valuable find of all was the ship's log book. It was still possible to read parts of the ship's log book." The sentence in the article uses the relative pronoun "which" to substitute for "ship's log book." "It" doesn't really have any meaning, like in sentences like "It's difficult" or "It's snowing." It's what they call the "null subject." |
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freshair313
Joined: 15 Nov 2005
Posts: 28
Location: China
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| Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:27 am Post subject: |
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| Thanks a lot for your kind help and instruction. |
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