h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dear Rudest Elf, a lot of us could, and would, say "He's Peter" as well as "That's Peter". Do you think there's a difference in meaning between "Who is it?" and "Who's there?"

15840 was mine. Sorry about that.

I paraphrase it below:

I've just got an email from LinkedIn which shows "their" being used insensitively:

Simon Smith has updated their current title to Head of Tea and Biscuits at Ye Olde Tea Shoppe

Polly Peachum has updated their current title to Putter on of Kettles at Ye Olde Tea Shoppe

If you're still not convinced, have a look at these examples from Michael Swan's 'Practical English Usage' (an Oxford University Press publication):

" It used to identify

We use 'it' to refer to a person when we are identifying him or her.

'Who's that over there?' 'It's John Cook.' (NOT 'He's John Cook.')
'Is that our waiter?' 'No it isn't.' (NOT 'No he isn't.')
On the phone: Hello. It's Alan Williams. (NOT ... I'm Alan Williams.)
It's your sister who plays the piano, isn't it? "

But the "it" has a different grammatical position. The actual subject of the sentence is "Peter" - etc. The "it" is, so to speak, on the 'other side' of the "is".

In the sentence "Peter drives the car", it is obvious which is the subject and which is the object, but with the verb "to be", it is harder to distinguish. Transpose "Peter(=Peter) drives (=is) the car (=it)" with "Peter is it", and you might see what I am trying to say.

The meaning of "Peter is it" might confuse us, as we don't know what the verb is relating to. But, when looked at more closely, as described above, the reason becomes clear.

To put that another way: As the conjugation "is" applies both to "Peter" and to "it", a native English speaker becomes unsure (despite the syntax) what the "is" is referring to.

At least, that's how I explain it to myself in lay terms.

In English the object and the subject are determined almost entirely by their position in the sentence. You can't say "The car drives Peter", just as you can't say "Peter is it".

(Well, you can say "Peter is it" but that means something completely different and the "it" is more a noun than a pronoun then, and not part of this discussion)


As I say, this is my amateur analysis of the problem and I'm sure WS can explain it better or maybe I'm wrong all together.

To complete my argument, I think what I'm trying to say is that "it" in the sentence "It is Peter" is not an actual person, but, as has already been said, the word itself is grammatically a placeholder, meaning that it is genderless, not flesh and bones, and only an abstract conception.

Closer to the French qu'est-ce que c'est, perhaps?

Is it (the case that the person I'm referring to is) Peter?
No, it isn't (the case).

There's one exception - tag games (you're it).

SChill,

Rudest Elf said that *it* was used to identify a person, so *it* refers to a person.

From A student´s Grammar of The English Language,by Greenbaum and Quirk":
"Any singular noun phrase that does not determine reference by 'he' or 'she' is referred to by 'it'; thus collectives, noncount concretes and abstractions:
The committee met soon after it had been appointed.(...)"

*It* refers to people.

::
I made the question because I don´t see a general use of their. Besides, one of my problems about using English is that I have no contact at all with native speakers. The users are eventually who fix the norms.

I thought that 'its' could be correct. But as 'their' seems to be the most accepted norm, I´ll use it from now on. (Although 'hir' would be perfect)

::
When I first learnt the pronouns we were taught that 'it' and 'its' were used to refer to pets and babies. Good is to dis-learn that, in the case of babies.

In the 19th century, babies would still be "it" well into toddlerdom.

<<In the sentence "Peter drives the car", it is obvious which is the subject and which is the object, but with the verb "to be", it is harder to distinguish.<<<

The verb To Be is an intransitive verb. It never takes an object.

To Be is copulative verb, to be more precise.

If you learned English as a foreign language you probably learned grammar. Most of us English speakers never learned any grammar at all, and have no idea what 'copulative' means. We struggle with the concepts of 'subject' and 'object'.

Sorry, copulative means linking.

http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/link.html

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/objcompl.html

That's what I meant, Maria.

In German (and probably in Latin) you learn that some verbs take the nominative, whereas most take the accusative or the dative. Those that take the nominative include "Sein=to be" "Nennen=to name" "werden=to become".

The point I was making above, though, is that the "it" in our example "Who is it?" or "It is Peter" is not a person as such, but an abstract idea - "The person we are talking about" or "The person at the other end of the line". In grammar, you have to rid your mind of the concept that this is an actual person.

Native speakers of foreign languages are more used to this type of thinking, as they can talk about "le chien", "der Hund" "il perro" without necessarily visualising the male animal.



Whoops - nearly went off limits there!!!

Nominative is the case for the subject, accusative is the case for the direct object and dative for the indirect one.

He gave me a kiss
'me' is the indirect object, 'a kiss' is the direct one.
or:
He gave it to me.
'it' is the direct one, 'to me', the indirect one.


<<<"it" in our example "Who is it?" or "It is Peter" is not a person as such, but an abstract idea - ""The person we are talking about" or "The person at the other end of the line". <<<

An abstract idea? I would say 'it' refers to an unidentified person.

I agree with Maria there -- it is philosophically dodgy to start categorising an unidentified person as an abstract idea! We are all abstract ideas here, one might argue. (Particularly when we identify ourselves by nicknames, and then scramble those nicknames for a Hallowe'en disguise. How much more abstract can you get?) Yet I don't feel inclined to call Snaildirt Chill 'it', any more than I would Trillian's Child or her RL name.

Abstract is not the explanation. Placeholder is better, I'd say; simpler.

I think I go with the placeholder thing. Can you believe I woke up thinking about this.

Who is on the phone?
"The person on the phone is Peter" not "The man on the phone is Peter"

Who ate my porrige?
"The person who ate your porridge is Goldilocks" not "The little girl was Goldilocks"

And there's a subtle difference between:

"There's a bloke at the door"
"Who is it?"

And

"There's a bloke at the door"
"Who is he?"

And

"There's a bloke at the door"
"What does he want?"

You certainly would not say "What does it want"? And you wouldn't say "there's a person at the door - it's asking if we want a trick or treat" though you might say "there's a ghost at the door - it's asking if we want a trick or treat"



Interesting stuff....

Coincidentally, I've just met a new-born and asked "What is the baby's name?"
I am not convinced by grammar books published earlier that 1990. My opinion is worth at least as much as theirs. I've written two myself and am currently transferring the second from book to website. I've taught EFL and Linguistics at university level cince 1969 and the point of my contributions to this thread has always been "This is what I think and say. Do you agree with me? How does this bit of language feel to you?" I'm particularly interested in what non-native speakers think.
Modern valency grammar relies heavily on placeholders.eg what does 'there' refer to in "There's a new moon tomorrow" "There are a lot of people who disagree with me"?

if placeholder means something you use instead of something else, then, 'there' isn´t one.
I understand that use of `there' as a gramatical subject. There´s no meaning, no reference in it. It´s used because in English there´s not verb without subject.

In Spanish we use an impersonal verb: there is/are is Hay.

That means it's a placeholder for the subject of the sentence.
If you were parsing those sentences, would you say that 'there' is a preposition, an adverb? a pronoun even?

hmmm. Not sure.
I would say 'there' is a pronoun. But which noun is it replacing? Then I would have to say that it´s a placeholder functioning as subject, with no lexical meaning but with a gramatical one.

Is it placeholder a term used to parse sentences?