A Communicative Grammar of English by Geoffrey Leech & Jan Svartvik

Author:Geoffrey Leech & Jan Svartvik [Leech, Geoffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317869672
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-11-13T23:00:00+00:00

In some instances, such as the passive construction (see 543, 613–18), it is impossible to keep the clause in subject position:

It is said that fear in human beings produces a smell that provokes animals to attack.

BUT NOT: *That fear in human beings produces a smell that provokes animals to attack is said.

For other examples of it replacing a postponed clause as subject, see 542. Main focus often occurs in the postponed clause:

It is unlikely that they will hold a referèndum.

But when an -ing clause is the postponed subject, the main focus normally falls on the rest of the main clause, and the -ing clause is treated as an afterthought:

| It’s hard wòrk | being a fáshion model. |

Postponing an object clause

425 Occasionally introductory it displaces a clause in object position. Just as in the case of subject clauses (424), the clause (here working here) is postponed:

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