It (pronoun)
In Modern English, it is a singular, neuter, third-person pronoun.
Morphology
In Modern English, it has only three shapes representing five word forms:[1]
- it: the nominative (subjective) and accusative (objective) forms. (The accusative case is also called the "oblique".[2]: 146 )
- its: the dependent and independent genitive (possessive) forms
- itself: the reflexive form
Historically, though, the morphology is more complex.
History
Old English
in the singular. The modern pronoun it developed out of the neuter, singular. The older pronoun had the following forms:Singular | Plural | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | ||
Nominative | hē | hit | hēo | hī(e) |
Accusative | hine | hit | hīe | hī(e) |
Dative | him | him | hire | him / heom |
Genitive | his | his | hire | hira / heora |
This neuter pronoun, like the masculine and feminine ones, was used for both people and objects (inanimate or abstract).
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, Angel
It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and oh the Mud, how deep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got into its Eye. And it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry for Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the raging of the Storm.
— Mark Twain, "Tale of the Fishwife and its Sad Fate", The Awful German Language (1880)
About half of the world's languages have gender, and there is a continuum between those with more
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:
- Nominative: (h)it
- Accusative: (h)it / him
- Genitive: his
- Reflexive:(h)it self. Also -selfe, -selve(n), -silf, -sijlfe, sometimes without a space.[11]
During the Middle English period,
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]
Gender
It is considered to be neuter or impersonal/non-personal in
Syntax
Functions
It 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.
- Subject: It's there; it being there; its being there; it allows for itself to be there.
- Object: I saw it; I pointed her to it; It connects to itself.
- Predicative complement: In our attempt to fight evil, we have become it; It took more than ten years it, to fully become itself.
- Determiner: I touched its top.
- Adjunct: It did it itself.
- Modifier: They were the it crowd.
Dummy it
A 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.
Gif on sæternesdæg geðunrað, þaet tacnað demena and gerefena cwealm
If on saturn's-day thunders, that portends judges' and sheriffs' death
If it thunders on Saturday, that portends the deaths of judges and sheriffs
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:
- (a) Events or happenings (chance, happen, befall, etc.)
- (b) Seeming or appearance (seem, think, become, etc.)
- (c) Sufficiency or lack (lack, need, suffice, etc.)
- (d) Mental processes or states (like, list, grieve, please, repent, rue, etc.)[2]: 250
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.
Dependents
Pronouns rarely take dependents, but it is possible for it to have many of the same kind of dependents as other noun phrases.
- Relative clause modifier: That's not the it that I meant; *That's not it that I meant.
- Determiner: That's not the it that I meant; *That's not the it.
- Adverb phrase external modifier: not even itself
Semantics
It is used to denote an inanimate physical object, abstract concept, situation, action, characteristic, and almost any other concept or being, including, occasionally, humans.
You have a way with you, Bernard. I'm not sure I like it.
— Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 1993
The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face to see what was the matter with it.
"He looks like nobody but himself," said Mrs. Owens, firmly. [...] It was then that [...] the child opened its eyes wide in wakefulness. It stared around it [...]
— Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book (2008), p. 25.
But he [Jesus] said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid."
— John 6:20[17]
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!").
QUÆRE—whether we may not, nay ought not, to use a neutral pronoun, relative or representative, to the word "Person," where it hath been used in the sense of homo, mensch,[a] or noun of the common gender, in order to avoid particularising man or woman, or in order to express either sex indifferently? If this be incorrect in syntax, the whole use of the word Person is lost in a number of instances, or only retained by some stiff and strange position of the words, as—"not letting the person be aware wherein offense has been given"—instead of—"wherein he or she has offended." In my [judgment] both the specific intention and general etymon of "Person" in such sentences fully authorise the use of it and which instead of he, she, him, her, who, whom.[18]
The children's author
Some people use it as a gender-neutral pronoun.[20]
Pronunciation
According to the
Form | IPA | Recording |
---|---|---|
it | /ɪt/ | |
its | /ɪts/ | |
itself | (UK)/ɪtˈsɛlf/
(US)/ᵻtˈsɛlf/ |
Popular culture
- Stephen King's 1986 book It is about a shape shifting, malevolent entity that often manifests as a clown.
- In games of tag, the person trying to tag others is known as it.
See also
- Generic antecedents
- Gender-specific pronoun
- English personal pronouns
Notes
- ^ Homo and Mensch are Latin and German words respectively which mean 'man' in a general sex-neutral sense, as opposed to "vir" and "Mann", which mean 'man' in the specifically masculine sense.
References
- ^ a b c Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge University Press.
- ^ a b c d Lass, Roger, ed. (1999). The Cambridge history of the English Language: Volume III 1476–1776. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ "it | Origin and meaning of it by Online Etymology Dictionary". www.etymonline.com. Retrieved 2021-03-20.
- ^ Blake, Norman, ed. (1992). The Cambridge history of the English Language: Volume II 1066–1476. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ a b John Richard Clark Hall (1916). A Concise Anglo−Saxon Dictionary (PDF) (2 ed.). CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS. p. 788. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 August 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
- ^ Huisman, Rosemary (Jan 2008). "Narrative sociotemporality and complementary gender roles in Anglo-Saxon society: the relevance of wifmann and wæpnedmann to a plot summary of the Old English poem Beowulf". Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association. 4. (weak source, but supports only the spelling variants given for clarity)
- ^ Wright, Thomas; Wülker, Richard Paul (1884). Anglo-Saxon and Old English vocabularies. London : Trübner. p. 89(PDF)/161(page number).
- ^ Deutscher 2005 pp. 41–42
- ^ Study, The Centre for Advanced; Isaksen, Karoline Kvellestad (11 October 2019). "Do we really need grammatical gender?". partner.sciencenorway.no (in Norwegian Bokmål).
- ^ a b Algeo, John; Pyles, Thomas (2010). THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTOF THEENGLISH LANGUAGE (PDF) (6 ed.). pp. 91–92.
- ^ "hit-self and hitself - Middle English Compendium". quod.lib.umich.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-20.
- ^ Algeo, John; Pyles, Thomas (2010). THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENTOF THEENGLISH LANGUAGE (PDF) (6 ed.). p. 167.
- ^ "who - Middle English Compendium". quod.lib.umich.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-20.
- ^ "which - Middle English Compendium". quod.lib.umich.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-20.
- ISSN 0885-2308.
- ^ Hogg, Richard, ed. (1992). The Cambridge history of the English language: Volume I The beginnings to 1066. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ John 6:20
- ^ Anima Poetæ: From the Unpublished Note-Books of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge (1895), p. 190.
- ^ Five Children and It, p. 1.
- ^ "Gender Census 2021: Worldwide Report". Gender Census. 1 April 2021. Retrieved 16 April 2021.
External links
- William Malone Baskervill and James Witt Sewel, An English Grammar Archived 2005-09-19 at the Wayback Machine, 1896.
- On some Philological Peculiarities in the English Authorized Version of the Bible. By Thomas Watts, Esq.
- 'It', Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).