Inglés sin barreras: impersonal subject

mercredi 26 novembre 2014

Top Tips Grammar: Impersonal subject ‘it’

Main points

*You use impersonal ‘it’ as the subject of a sentence to introduce new information.
*You use ‘it’ to talk about the time or the date.
*You use ‘it’ to talk about the weather.
*You use ‘it’ to express opinions about places, situations, and events.
*‘It’ is often used with the passive of reporting verbs to express general beliefs and options.

a) ‘It’ is a pronoun. As a personal pronoun it refers back to something that has already been mentioned.

- They learn to speak English before they learn to read it.
- Maybe he changed his mind, but I doubt it.

You can also use ‘it’ as the subject of a sentences when it does not refer back to anything that has already been mentioned. This impersonal use of ‘it’ introduces new information, and is used particularly to talk about times, dates, the weather, and personal opinions.

b) You use impersonal ‘it’ with a form of ‘be’ to talk about the time or the date.

- It is nearly one o’clock.
- It’s the sixth of April today.

c) You use impersonal ‘it’ with verbs which refer to the weather:

anybody everybody nobody somebody

anyone everyone no one someone

anything everything nothing something

- It’s still raining.
- It snowed steadily through the night.
- It was pouring with rain.

You can describe the weather by using ‘it’ followed by ‘be’ and an adjective with or without a noun.

- It’s a lovely day.
- It was very bright.

You can describe a change in the weather by using ‘it’ followed by ‘get’ and an adjectives.

- It was getting cold.
- It’s getting dark.

d) You use impersonal ‘it’, followed by a form of ‘be’ and adjective or noun group, to express your opinion about a place, a situation, or an event. The adjective or noun group can be followed by an adverbial or by an ‘-ing’ clause, a ‘to’- infinitive clause, or a ‘that’ – clause.

- It was terribly cold in the trucks.
- It’s fun working for him.
- It was a pleasure to be there.
- It’s strange that it hasn’t been noticed before.

e) You use ‘it’ followed by a verb such as ‘interest’, ‘please’, ‘surprise’, or ‘upset’ which indicates someone’s reaction to a fact, situation, or event. The verb is followed b a noun group, and a ‘that’- clause or a ‘to’- infinitive clause.

- It please me that he should want to talk about his work.
- It surprised him to realize that he hadn’t thought about them until now.

f) You can also use ‘it’ with the passive of a reporting verb and a ‘that’- clause when you want to suggest that an opinion or belief is shared by many people. This use is particularly common in news reports for example in newspapers, on the radio, or the television.

- It was said that he could speak their language.
- Nowadays it is believed that the size is unimportant.
- It is thought that about a million puppies are born each year.

Note that the passive of reporting verbs can also be used without impersonal ‘it’ to express general opinions.

- The factories were said to be much worse.
- They are believed to be dangerous.

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Top Tips Abz Ingles: Part A - Part B
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See also:

Words related to Failure to Cooperate Irregular Verbs list

Common Phrasal Verbs Common Slangs

Common misspellings Regular vs Irregular Verbs

Common Errors Frequently confused words

Common Slangs Lista de Términos Gramaticales

Common Clichés Common Prepositions

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Top Tips Grammar: Impersonal subject ‘there’

Main points

+You use ‘there’ followed by a form of ‘be’ and a noun group to introduce new information.
+You use ‘there’ with a singular or plural verb, depending on whether the following noun is singular or plural.
+You can also use ‘there’ with modals.

a) ‘There’ is often an adverb of place.

- Are you comfortable there?
- The book is there on the table.

You can also use ‘there’ as the impersonal subject of a sentence when it does not refer to a place. In this case you use ‘there’ to introduce new information and to focus upon. After ‘there’ you use a form of ‘be’ and a noun group.

- There is work to be done.
- There will be a party tonight.
- There was no damage.
- There have been two telephone calls.

Note that the impersonal subject ‘there’ is often pronounced without stress, whereas the adverb is almost always stressed.

b) You use ‘there’ as the impersonal subject to talk about:

*the existence or presence of someone or something.

- There are two people who might know what happened.
- There are many possibilities.
- There is plenty of bread.

*something that happens.

- There was a general election that year.
- There’s a meeting every week.
- There was a fierce battle.

*a number or amount.

- There are forty of us, I think.
- There is a great deal of anger about his decision.
- There were a lot of people camped there.

c) When the noun group after the verb is plural, you use a plural verb

- There are many reasons for this.
- There were two men in the room.

You also use a plural verb before such as ‘a number (of)’, ‘a lot (of)’, and ‘a few (of)’.

- There were a lot of people camped there.
- There are only a few left.

d) When the noun group after the verb is singular or uncountable, you use a singular verb.

- There is one point we must add here.
- There isn’t enough room in here.

You also use a singular verb when you are mentioning more than one person or thing and the first noun after the verb is singular or uncountable.

- There was a man and a woman.
- There was a sofa and two chairs.

e) You can also use ‘there’ with a modal, followed by ‘be’ or ‘have been’.

- There could be a problem.
- There should be a change in government.
- There can’t have been anybody outside.
- There must have been some mistake.

f) In spoken and informal written English, shorts forms of ‘be’ or a modal are normally used after ‘there’.

- There’s no danger.
- There’ll always be a future for music.
- I knew there’d be trouble.
- There’s been quite a lot of research into it.
- I didn’t ever know there’d been a murder.

g) You can also use ‘there’ with ‘appear’ or ‘seem’, followed by ‘to be’ or ‘to have been’.

- There appears to be a cast amount of confusion on this point.
- There don’t seem to be many people on campus.
- There seems to have been some carelessness.