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upthorn
@upthorn

Is there, like, a word for what it is doing in English constructions like "it's raining" or "it's hot"?

Normally it is a pronoun which stands in for a noun that has been previously referred to, or is obvious from context. But what is it standing in for in these sentences? In English, "raining" is a verb that actually does not take a subject. Sort of like the opposite of an intransitive verb. It can rain frogs. It can rain blood. But nothing can rain.

Like, replace It with any conceivable word that might be being referred to in the sentence "It's raining." None of those replacements will be correct.

Is there a linguistic term for this phenomenon of an "empty" pronoun being used to stand in for the lack of a subject?
Also, is there any established term for a verb that takes no subject? The closest I can think of is ergative but I'm not sure that's quite accurate.


bethposting
@bethposting

a sort of similar thing is hay in spanish, which translates as "there is" or "there are"

example sentence: "Hay lluvia." (There is rain.)

From what I can tell, it's a special third person usage of the verb "to have" that doesn't specify any subject that does the actual having. There's no dummy pronoun, unlike English, but in general Spanish is a pro-drop and null-subject language that allows the pronoun to be omitted if including it wouldn't add anything to the meaning.


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in reply to @upthorn's post:

My first assumption was that it probably is replacing something but language has evolved such that it would sound weird to say "the weather is raining", "the sky is raining" or "the rain is raining". But I know the construction is similar in French, il pleut, il neige etc., which lead me to finding Impersonal Verbs as the answer for your second question.

I can't find a definitive word for what "it" is doing. It might be a Dummy/Expletive Pronoun/Subject. But I'm not an expert, I just found this stuff online.

in reply to @bethposting's post:

in reply to @bethposting's post:

there are some more verbs that that implied dummy subject can do! "hace calor" "está nevando"

but yea "hay" is the most fun one bc it's a special third person conjugation of the other/special "to be" (not the "she has a thingy" one)

From what I can tell, it's a special third person usage of the verb "to have" that doesn't specify any subject that does the actual having.

Kind of?

I'm not a native speaker, but I studied for a long-ass time, so don't take me as authoritative.

Spanish has a split between two different verbs, which both get translated into English as "have" but mean different things and are not interchangeable. It inherits this from Latin, which also has two such verbs but they split differently, and there are contexts where they are interchangeable.

Latin used "habeo" for "to have" in the abstract sense, that you possess something. Something is yours. And the verb "teneo" is often defined as meaning "to hold," meaning physical possession, although in context the most idiomatic English translation is often "have" instead of "hold."

In Spanish, "teneo" became "tener" and basically took over both of those meanings and is the only verb denoting possession of any form. You use it for holding and for having.

The verb "habeo" became "haber," but exists in a much more limited set of circumstances. To my knowledge, exactly two:

  1. The auxiliary verb denoting the perfect aspect, which coincidentally in English is also the verb "have." I have taken a walk. I have commented on your chost. This is, uh, what's the linguistic term? Non-lexical?
  2. The irregular form meaning "there is." Note that this form cannot have a definite subject, and unlike any other Spanish verb, it stays in the ostensible singular even when its implied subject is plural.

Frankly I think it's difficult to support saying that "hay" is actually a form of the same verb, except in a historical sense. It's considered a third-person singular, but it's different from the regular third-person singular ("ha"), and it never has a subject anyways. There's just no connection. It would be equally productive to simply say that "hay" is a totally separate verb, with irregular conjugation and uniquely no subject. There's also no longer really a connection to "having" in the sense of possession.