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Taka Posted 19 years ago
Grammar

it

0 01i00Charles Goodyear discovered the vulcanization process for rubber when he accidentally dropped a piece of rubber mixed with sulfur onto a hot stove. For many years Goodyear had been obsessed with finding a way to make rubber useful. Because 01font00it 02font00was an accident that led to the successful process so diligently sought for, Royston Roberts decided to call this a pseudoserendipitous discovery.02br
02br
02i00About the 'it' above, grammatically, is it:02br
02br
00(1) a pronoun which refers to the incident that Goodyear accidentally dropped a piece of rubber mixed with sulfur onto a hot stove. 02br
02br
00or02br
02br
00(2) the preparatory 'it' in a cleft sentence.02br
02br
00?02br
01i00 02i00 0-
  

Top answer

0 In my opinion 'it' refers to the accident. 0-

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  • 0 In my opinion 'it' refers to the accident.
  • 0-
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23 Answers
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0 In my opinion 'it' refers to the accident. 0-
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0We need CJ, the champion of all cleft sentences to confirm this, but it sure sounds like a cleft to me.02br
02br
00An accident led to the discovery: It was an accident that led to the discovery. Isn't that a cleft?0-
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0 01blockquote
01cite10Grammar Geek12cite10An accident led to the discovery: It was an accident that led to the discovery. Isn't that a cleft?12br
12blockquote
10But that analysis doesn't work for the original sentence, does it?02br
02br
01i00Because 00it was an accident that led to the succes
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0Think I'd vote for "cleft" too. 02br
02br
00I'm not sure the original phrasing entirely justifies the "pseudo-serendipitous", though. I think this may have been the intended sense:01blockquote
02br
12br
10Because an accident led to the discovery of a process that was already being sought for, 10Royston Roberts decided to call this a pse
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0 MrP,02br
02br
00The entire paragraph is about the contrast between serendipity and pseudoserendipity:02br
02br
01i00I (02i00Royston Roberts ) 01i00have coined the term pseudoserendipitiy to describe accidental discoveries of ways to achieve an end sought for, in contrast to the meaning of (true) serendipity, which describes
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0 (2)02br
02br
00 CJ0-
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0 01blockquote
01cite10CalifJim12cite10(2)12br
12br
10 CJ12br
12br
12blockquote
10Any comments on the analysis abouve your simple reply, CJ?0-
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0 Hmmm. It just strikes me as a typical example of a cleft structure.02br
02br
01blockquote
01i10Because an accident led to the successful process so diligently sought for, Royston Roberts decided to call this a pseudoserendipitous discovery.　12i10（??)12blockquote
10I don't see why you put the question marks here.02b
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0The focus in a cleft structure is on term X, e.g.02br
02br
001. Because it was X that led to Y, I did Z.02br
02br
00So I find I can't help reading it with this intonation, which is why I called it "mis-cleft":02br
02br
00"Because 00it was an 01i00accident02i00 that led to the successful process so diligently
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0 01blockquote
01cite10MrPedantic12cite10The focus in a cleft structure is on term X, e.g.12br
12br
101. Because it was X that led to Y, I did Z.12br
10But in the original sentence, the focus should be jointly on X and Y: or rather, on the Y-ish nature of X.12br
12br
12blockquote
10Yes
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