Theoretical grammar of english

25. The principal parts of the s-ce. The subj.Types of subj-s in E.The problem of the anticipatory IT.
The subj. is one of the two main parts of the sent. (1)meaning(relation of the subj. to the thought expressed in the sent.)It denotes the thing(here the term includes human beings,abstract notins,etc.) whose action or characteristic is expressed by the predicate. (2)syntactical relations in the sent. It`s not dependent on any other part of the sent. (3)its morphological realization May be expressed by different parts of speech,the most frequentones being:a noun in the common case,a personal pronoun in the nominative case,a demonstrative pronoun occasionally,a substantivized adj,a numeral,an infinitive, a gerund.,also may be expressed by a phrase
Subj. conveys the theme of the sent. or what is being described in the sent. It influences the form of the predicate & the type of the relations b\n the sub. & the pred.
Subj-s can be notional - refers to a living being,a thing,a material or an abstract notion – Peter saw him in the street.The house was large.The snow was rather deep.The idea seemed good- The sent.containing a notional subj. is called a personal sentence(p.sent). A specific instance of p.sent. wiil be an “indefinite personal”sent.The meaning of the subj. In such instances is rather vague,indefinte.The pronouns “we”,”you””one”,”they” will be used here (“One could never make too many friends in a strange place)
and formal “it” or “there”being used as such,and when used as a formal subj.they have no lexical meaning and are used as purely structural elements to make the sent.comply with the normal 2-member English sent.-pattern (далее брала из Резник-Сорокина)
“It” as subj.of an impersonal sent. can denote natural phenomena(it`s raining); time(It was very late) and distances (It`s four miles to the sea.)
“It” may also be used as a formal subj.when the notional subj.is expressed by an inf. or a gerund used absolutely or as part of a phrase or syntactic complex(It was pleasant to go there. It was pleasant for him to go there)
Note1: Don`t mix up: “It was pleasant to go there.He knew he was expected”(=To go there was pleasant) It – formal subj.,to go – notional subj.
“The task was rather complicated,but it was pleasant to do”(The task was pleasant to do) It – notional subj., to do – object to the predicate “was pleasant”
Note2 : It may be used as a formal subj.also in emphatic constructions of the type : “It was he who went there” (emphatic “it”)
(это мне прислала стебелькова катя из 309)Grammarians say that IT in such sentences replace the notional sub., the anticipatory it. The notional sub. is expressed here either by inf., gerund, clause, it`s placed at the end of the sent and is called postponed sub. It`s possible to employ some transformations to these sentences: It`s necessary to do it – To do it is necessary. But some linguists ( ) don`t share this point of view. The say:1. It`s not reasonable for an E. sent. to have two sub-s. 2. with some sentences transformations are impossible (It`s time to go there). The further problem is that they don`t define the status of formal IT in these sent-s.Смирницкий: The inf. Phrase or the gerundial phrase here is an element of a compound predicate. Гордон-Крылова: treat inf-s and ger-s as objects and if we have a clause, it`s an object clause.

The word “there” is used as a formal subj.generally when the notional subj.is expressed by a noun(a noun phrase) and also sometimes when the notional subj.is expressed by a gerund(ger.phrase/complex) (“There was a table in the corner.There`s no use complicating things for you”)