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Because 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 hav
by msla 4y ago
Because 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".