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Post title reminds me of the following head scratcher I read somewhere once: What does “it” refer to in the question “What time is it?” Cue an hours-long conv
by jzl 4y ago
Post title reminds me of the following head scratcher I read somewhere once:
What does “it” refer to in the question “What time is it?”
Cue an hours-long conversation about philosophy and language.
- msla 4y ago> What does “it” refer to in the question “What time is it?” > Cue an hours-long conversation about philosophy and language. Only among people who aren't linguists. Of course, a lot of philosophy is merely confusion about language.
- msla 4y agoBecause I can't leave it alone: This is an example of a dummy pronoun, which is syntactically required even though it doesn't provide any meaning. We could have avoided this discussion if English were a pronoun-dropping language, like Japanese, which is why this is philosophically a bit shallow: Deep philosophy doesn't depend on what language I happen to speak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_pronoun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_pronoun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-drop_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-drop_language
- jzl 4y agoHahah, this is great. Never knew about the general topic of dummy pronouns. Hey, it looks like even linguists don’t all agree. From the wiki: Some linguists such as D. L. Bolinger go even further, claiming that the "weather it" simply refers to a general state of affairs in the context of the utterance. In this case, it would not be a dummy word at all. Possible evidence for this claim includes exchanges such as: "Was it nice (out) yesterday?" "No, it rained." where it is implied to mean "the local weather".
- astrange 4y ago> Of course, a lot of philosophy is merely confusion about language. Good to know Wittgenstein is still posting.