Odd dummy subject markers
Laurence Horn
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Mon Apr 3 20:16:06 UTC 2006
At 5:53 PM -0200 4/3/06, Charles Doyle wrote:
>The PP need not always be fronted, either. Just as normal
>is "It says in the Bible that . . . ."
Right, or even be a PP; cf. "It says here that...". But I think you
do need "it says" for these rather than, say, "it features".
>--although "It
>features a checkerboard pattern on the sign . . ." could
>imply a definite antecedent for "it" (the restaurant, or
>whatever), making "it" less dummy-looking?
>
Agreed, in that it's really "the sign" that features the
checkerboard, not the dummy-"it".
LH
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