English major?

[JBeukema]

'it is raining outside'

What does 'it' refer to? What is 'it'? I mean.. what the hell does that pronoun stand in for? WHAT is raining outside?

 

[Zoom-boing]

In your sentence, 'it' refers to the weather.

Personal Pronouns

A personal pronoun refers to a specific person or thing and changes its form to indicate person, number, gender, and case.
Subjective Personal Pronouns

A subjective personal pronoun indicates that the pronoun is acting as the subject of the sentence. The subjective personal pronouns are "I," "you," "she," "he," "it," "we," "you," "they."

In the following sentences, each of the highlighted words is a subjective personal pronoun and acts as the subject of the sentence:

I was glad to find the bus pass in the bottom of the green knapsack.
You are surely the strangest child I have ever met.
He stole the selkie's skin and forced her to live with him.
When she was a young woman, she earned her living as a coal miner.
After many years, they returned to their homeland.
We will meet at the library at 3:30 p.m.
It is on the counter.
Are you the delegates from Malagawatch?

What is a Pronoun?

Oddly enough, it really is raining outside here!

 

[xotoxi]

'it is raining outside'

What does 'it' refer to? What is 'it'? I mean.. what the hell does that pronoun stand in for? WHAT is raining outside?

How about this one:

"It was raining outside."

This doesn't give me any useful information. What the fuck is it doing now? Do I still need a raincoat? Should I throw on my galoshes?

 

[Zoom-boing]

X - if it was raining it's implied that it no longer is raining. But don't take my word for it . . . just look out the window.

 

[JBeukema]

In your sentence, 'it' refers to the weather.

The weather is raining? So raining is an action that the noun 'the weather' performs?

I wonder is other languages seem this odd to people who speak them

 

[strollingbones]

it is a noun....is is the verb...raining is direct object and outside is the direct adjective...

it is raining outside

close as i could come to diagramming the damn thing

 

[DamnYankee]

"It" is what it is doing outside, which, in your example, is raining. Does that help?

Oh, and as far as the oddity of other languages, using Spanish as an example, one must remember that nouns have either feminine or masculine forms of the word, and you'd best remember which one to use!

 

[JW Frogen]

I majored in English, and English minored me.

Hit the road grammar, don’t you come back no more.

 

[JBeukema]

it is a noun....is is the verb...raining is direct object and outside is the direct adjective...

it is raining outside

close as i could come to diagramming the damn thing

So raining is the state of being, then?

it just seems bizarre to me still

"It" is what it is doing outside, which, in your example, is raining. Does that help?

Oh, and as far as the oddity of other languages, using Spanish as an example, one must remember that nouns have either feminine or masculine forms of the word, and you'd best remember which one to use!

If I recall, English is one of the few languages lacking a gender-neutral second-person personal pronoun

 

[Zoom-boing]

It is no longer raining outside.

 

[strollingbones]

i could be wrong?

 

[JBeukema]

idk.. I think they covered this in school years ago, but I never diagram sentences IRL. As a result, I know how to use the language better than many (though not as well as some I've known) , but didn't retain these kinds of details regarding the structure of ASE. I tire of linguistics, now.

 

[alan1]

'it is raining outside'

What does 'it' refer to? What is 'it'? I mean.. what the hell does that pronoun stand in for? WHAT is raining outside?

That depends upon what the definition of depends is.