The Anticipatory It in English Grammar

The Anticipatory 'It' in English Grammar In English grammar, anticipatory it involves the placement of the pronoun  it in the usual subject position of a sentence as a stand-in for the postponed subject, which appears after the verb. It is also called an  extraposed subject. Anticipatory it  tends to place the emphasis on the verb or (more commonly) on the noun phrase that follows the verb.   When the subject works better at the end of the sentence,  anticipatory it is often the best way to go, and its commonly heard in everyday speech and found regularly in all types of writing. Shifting Nominal Clauses to the End Gerald C. Nelson and Sidney Greenbaum discuss nominal clauses in An Introduction to English Grammar (2013): It is unusual to have a nominal clause  as the subject of the sentence:  That they canceled the concert is a pity. Instead, the subject is usually moved to the end (the postponed subject), and its position is taken by it (the anticipatory subject):  It  is a pity that the concert was canceled. Here are some more examples: It  is likely  that well be moving to Glasgow. It  doesnt matter to me  who pays for my ticket.Its impossible  to say when they are arriving. It  has not been announced  whether negotiations between the employers and the employees have broken down. The exception is that nominal  -ing  clauses  are natural in the normal subject position: Having a good self-image  keeps me sane.Living in France  was a wonderful experience. Anticipatory It, Dummy It, and Preparatory It Bas Aarts, Sylvia Chalker, and Edmund Weiner sort through more grammatical it details in The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar from  2014. In the first sentence below,  it is an anticipatory subject (the grammatical subject), and in the second  sentence it is an anticipatory object: It  is better  to have loved and lost  than never to have loved at all.I take  it that you agree with me. There  is considerable confusion in the usage of the terms available to describe the various functions of the word it. For some grammarians,  anticipatory it (used with  extraposition) and  preparatory it  are  identical, but they distinguish this usage from  dummy it,  as in  It is raining. Others use all or some of these terms differently or use one of them as an umbrella term. Examples of Anticipatory It It is a shame that the break-in wasnt immediately reported to the police.It is clear that inadequate resources will have an impact on the care of children with disabilities.  Its no concern of mine what happens in this village, so long as my customers dont quarrel when theyre in here. John Rhode (Cecil Street), Murder at Lilac Cottage (1940)It is time you stopped  working. You are the head of the family and it is right that you should be at home to see that everything is in order. Masti Venkatesha  Iyengar, The Curds-Seller in Best Loved Indian Stories, Volume 2 ed. by  Indira Srinivasan and Chetna Bhatt (1999)