Friday, November 8, 2019

"It must have been a powerful wizard to ... " -- is "it" a pronoun or a dummy?


"Charlie's in Romania studying dragons, and Bill's in Africa doing something for Gringotts[bank]," said Ron. "Did you hear about Gringotts? It's been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don't suppose you get that with the Muggles - someone tried to rob a high security vault."
Harry stared.
"Really? What happened to them?"
"Nothing, that's why it's such big news. They haven't been caught. My dad says it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they don't think they took anything, that's what's odd. 'Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who's behind it."
(Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)



Does highlighted 'it' indicate ‘someone’ who wasn’t known its sex; or is it an anticipatory it (dummy it) for ‘a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts’?



Answer



This is, as you suspected, a "dummy" pronoun.


The English verb BE is not 'existential' - that is, it cannot be used intransitively to assert the existence or occurrence of its subject. It is a copula which joins its subject to a noun or adjective phrase which characterizes the subject - a 'subject complement'.


Consequently, if you want to assert the existence of something you must introduce a dummy subject to which BE may join the something.


Usually that dummy is there: There must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts. But there is not (as is usually claimed) a dummy pronoun, but a dummy adverbial: the there BE construction asserts the presence of its complement.


Ron, however, wants to assert not merely that a powerful wizard was present but that the wizard was the agent, the subject of get round. He accomplishes this semantic shift by employing the alternative dummy pronoun it: It must've been ...


No comments:

Post a Comment

Simple past, Present perfect Past perfect

Can you tell me which form of the following sentences is the correct one please? Imagine two friends discussing the gym... I was in a good s...