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I recently posted a question on my blog about the phrase, "What time is it?"
I was curious as to what "it" stands for. What time is what? :
The other day my friend asked me, “What time is it?†and I responded, “What time is what?†without thinking. What is the it in the question?
I googled “what time is it†and the search returned my local time as well as the current time in a few other major U.S. cities. I searched deeper into the query and could not find an answer. It has to stand for something. It is a pronoun – it replaces a noun. So what is it?
Questions like “What time is it starting†make sense. It replaces the event you've already been talking about:
“Let's go see Avatar tonight.â€
“What time is it playing?â€
The only logical conclusion I could come up with is that it stands for the present time. "What is the present time?" That makes sense. But you wouldn't say, “What time is the present time?â€
“What time is it?†could also just be a rearranging of the question, “What is the time?†with it replacing time and then redundantly repeating the noun you've just replaced with a pronoun.
But if it is replacing “this present time,†wouldn't you ask, “What time is this present time?â€
In that case, wouldn't it make more sense to just ask, “What time is this?â€
There must be a name for this phenomenon. When you think about it, it is not only the time. We also say "It is raining." What is raining? Or if you are about to go out, you might ask, "What's it like out there?" What's what like? But someone may naturally respond, "It's cold and windy out there." What is cold and windy? We generally seem to use "it" to refer to present conditions, whether they are related to time, weather, or anything else. We also use "it" in expressions like, "Wouldn't it be nice if...?" Wouldn't what be nice?
This doesn't only happen in English. In Spanish people ask " ¿Qué hora es?", literally, "What hour is it?" (in Spanish the 3rd person singular pronoun is implied by the verb conjugation). In German you ask "Wie spät ist es?", which literally means "How late is it?" It would seem the 3rd person singular pronoun is the natural way of referring to whatever may be going on at the present time that we don't have anyone in particular to blame for in any language.
That's it! I've had it! What have I had?... If anyone out there has a name for this type of "it", spit it out, we'd appreciate it. You're it.
These are examples of non-referential "it". It is an active area of interest to linguists, and especially in the area of machine learning. It is related to non-referential "there" (e.g. There is … .; There are … .)
Here's is an article written jointly by an Adrienne Boyd, Dept. of Linguistics, Ohio State University, and Whitney Gegg-Harrison and Donna Byron, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Ohio State Univerity:
Non-referential "it"
They classify various types of non-referential "it", including the ones mentioned above and a few others:
Extrapositional (e.g. It seems to me you should go.);
Cleft (e.g. It is on this point that we disagree.);
Weather/Condition/Time/Place (e.g. It is snowing. It is midnight. It is dark. It is a mile to the store.);
Idiomatic (e.g. Cool it. He had an easy time of it. It's my turn.)
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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