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It (pronoun)In Modern English, it is a singular, neuter, third-person pronoun. MorphologyIn Modern English, it has only three shapes representing five word forms:[1]
Historically, though, the morphology is more complex. HistoryOld EnglishOld English had a single third-person pronoun – from the Proto-Germanic demonstrative base *khi-, from PIE *ko- "this"[3] – which had a plural and three genders in the singular. The modern pronoun it developed out of the neuter, singular. The older pronoun had the following forms:
This neuter pronoun, like the masculine and feminine ones, was used for both people and objects (inanimate or abstract). Common nouns in Anglo-Saxon had grammatical genders, which were not necessarily the same as the gender of the person(s) referred to (though they tended to accord with the endings of the words). For instance, Old-English cild (the ancestor of "child", pronounced "chilled") is neuter, as are both wæpnedcild and wifcild, literally "male-child" and "female-child" (grammatical gender survives here; some 21st-century English speakers still use "it" with "child", see below). The word wif, (which meant "female", ancestor of "wife" as in "fishwife"), is also neuter. Mann ("Man") was grammatically male, but meant "a person", and could, like cild, be qualified with a gender. Wifmann (variant wimman, ancestor of "woman") meant "female person" and was grammatically masculine, like its last element, mann, and like wæpnedmann (variant wepman, "male person").[5][6] Archbishop Ælfric's Latin vocabulary gives three Anglo-Saxon words for an intersex person, scritta (dialectical "skratt", grammatically masculine), wæpnedwifestre (grammatically feminine, like its last element, -estre), and bæddel (grammatically masculine).[7] Similarly, because waru is feminine, so are landwaru (inhabitants of a region), heofonwaru (inhabitants of heaven), and helwaru (inhabitants of hell). Angelcynn is neuter, Angelðeod feminine, and both mean "the Angles, the English people". Nouns for inanimate objects and abstract concepts also had (grammatical) genders.[5] Mark Twain parodied this grammatical structure (which exists in many languages like German) by rendering it literally into modern English:[8]
About half of the world's languages have gender, and there is a continuum between those with more grammatical gender (based on word form, or quite arbitrary), and those with more natural gender (based on word meaning).[9] The concept of natural gender was beginning to develop in Old English, occasionally conflicting with the established grammatical gender. This development was, however, mostly to take place later, in Middle English.[10] Middle English (1066–1400s)In the 12th century, it started to separate and appear without an h. Around the same time, one case was lost, and distinct pronouns started to develop, so that by the 15th century (late Middle English), the forms of it were as follows:
During the Middle English period, grammatical gender was gradually replaced with natural gender in English.[10] Modern English (a bit before 1550–present)Middle English gradually gave way to Modern English in the early 16th century. The hit form continued well into the 16th century but had disappeared before the 17th in formal written English.[2]: 147 Genitive its appeared in the later 16th century and had taken over by the middle of the 17th, by which time it had its modern form.[2]: 148 "Hit" remains in some dialects in stressed positions only; some dialects also use "it", not "its", as a possessive.[12] GenderIt is considered to be neuter or impersonal/non-personal in gender. In Old English, (h)it was the neuter nominative and accusative form of hē. But by the 17th century, the old gender system, which marked gender on common nouns and adjectives, as well as pronouns, had disappeared, leaving only pronoun marking. At the same time, a new relative pronoun system was developing that eventually split between personal relative who[13] and impersonal relative which.[14][1]: 1048 As a result, some scholars consider it to belong to the impersonal gender, along with relative which and interrogative what.[15] SyntaxFunctionsIt can appear as a subject, object, determiner or a predicative complement.[1] The reflexive form also appears as an adjunct. It very seldom appears as a modifier.
Dummy itA dummy pronoun is one that appears only for syntactic reasons and has no semantic value. One use of it is as a dummy pronoun (see also there) as in it's raining or it's clear that you understand. In Old English, a subject was not required in the way it is today. As the subject requirement developed, there was a need for something to fill it with verbs taking zero arguments. Weather verbs such as rain or thunder were of this type, and, as the following example[16]: 208 shows, dummy it often took on this role.
But these were not the only such verbs. Most of the verbs used without a subject or with the dummy it belong to one of the following semantic groups:
And examples still remain, such as the expression suffice it to say. The same use of dummy it exists in cleft constructions, such as it's obvious that you were there. DependentsPronouns rarely take dependents, but it is possible for it to have many of the same kind of dependents as other noun phrases.
SemanticsIt is used to denote an inanimate physical object, abstract concept, situation, action, characteristic, and almost any other concept or being, including, occasionally, humans.
It is usually definite and specific, but it can also have no referent at all (See Dummy it). It can be debatable whether a particular use is a dummy it or not (for instance: "Who is it?"—"It's me!"). Samuel Taylor Coleridge proposed using it in a wider sense in all the situations where a gender-neutral pronoun might be desired:
The children's author E. Nesbit consistently wrote in this manner, often of mixed groups of children: "Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to get out of the carriage."[19] This usage (but in all capital letters, as if an acronym) also occurs in District of Columbia police reports. Some people use it as a gender-neutral pronoun.[20] PronunciationAccording to the OED, the following pronunciations are used:
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