Subject + verb + it + clause
Hi,
I have encountered these sentence structures:
I hate it when you embarrassed me in front of my friends.
I'd prefer it if you stayed out of my lawn.
The structure is: subject + verb + it + clause
Could you please tell me some other sentences with similar structure?
Thank you very much.
Top answer
"it" refers to a situation or idea either previously mentioned, understood, or described in the following clause and the verb is transitive, requiring an object. You'll know / recognize it when you see it. I hate it when you embarrass me in front of my friends.
- "it" refers to a situation or idea either previously mentioned, understood, or described in the following clause and the verb is transitive, requiring an object.
- You'll know / recognize it when you see it.
- I hate it when you embarrass me in front of my friends.
- I love it when...
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"it" refers to a situation or idea either previously mentioned, understood, or described in the following clause and the verb is transitive, requiring an object.
You'll know / recognize it when you see it.
I hate it when you embarrass me in front of my friends.
I love it when...
0In the kind of construction found in your examples like yours, the pronoun "it" does not refer to some contextually salient entries, and hence is simply a dummy element serving the syntactic purpose of filling the object position (of "prefer" and "stay").
Note that it can't be replaced by any other 3rd person pronouns.
Other examples with non-referential "it" include:
0
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