it is sad that she could not arrive. could you pl explain the position and parts of speech of 'IT' in the given sentence
The word "It" is serving as the subject of this sentence, but it's a pronoun that has no antecedent in this construction. It's simply used as filler!
Go to the very bottom of this website:
http://www.fountainheadpress.com/contentresources/grammar_sentenceorder.pdf
Read 35e (1.).
And this one: http://college.cengage.com/english/raimes/digitalkeys/keyshtml/check_f3.htm
Good sentences will not begin with "it."
Certainly! In the given sentence "It is sad that she could not arrive," the word "it" is being used as a pronoun. More specifically, it is functioning as a dummy pronoun, also known as an expletive pronoun.
The word "it" is a subject pronoun that doesn't refer to any particular noun in this context. Instead, it is used to introduce the sentence and satisfy the grammatical requirement of having a subject. In this case, "it" is representing a general sense of sadness or disappointment. The actual subject of the sentence is the clause "that she could not arrive."
To determine the position of "it" in the sentence, we can break it down as follows:
- Subject pronoun "it" occupies the initial position.
- The verb "is" follows immediately after "it."
- The adjective "sad" modifies the pronoun "it."
- The clause "that she could not arrive" functions as the complement of the verb "is."
Overall, the word "it" is used to introduce the subject of the sentence and establish the sense of sadness.