Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 January 16

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January 16

Split subject?

Here's a sentence I read in yesterday's newspaper:

• Yes, there are a contented few, but I recently did a workshop about self-esteem and it alarmed me the number of people in the room who were disappointed in themselves, their partners or their lives.

I've emboldened the part I'm interested in. It could be separated off into its own sentence without violation of the sense.

How is this analysed? The subject, at first glance, is "it". But clearly, "the number of people ... lives" is also very subject-like. It seems to be answering the unasked question, "What alarmed you?". How do these two subject-parts fit together, syntactically speaking?

If they'd written "... the number of people in the room who were disappointed in themselves, their partners or their lives alarmed me", there'd be no problem at all. One (complex) subject, one verb, one object. But the quoted idiomatic version seems to be indulging in two subjects, which are equivalent in meaning, and are separated by the verb and the object. Or is it considered a single, but split subject? In which case, why would "it" be required, since it refers to the rest of itself? Or is that just how split subjects work? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:05, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

See Dummy pronoun#Raising verbs and Talk:Dummy pronoun#Incorrectly analyzed example. Loraof (talk) 21:24, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. It's sort of a dummy pronoun, but I can't see this type of sentence covered there. In all the examples given, what "it" is, is either never spelt out because there's no need ("It's raining"); or, in the case of referential "it", the referent is specified earlier ("She ate the sandwich and enjoyed it"; it would most unnatural to say "She ate it and enjoyed the sandwich"). In my sentence, the referent (a) follows rather than precedes "it" and (b) is just stuck in the first available space, with no obvious relationship to the word preceding it ("me"). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:58, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Why don't you ask about: 1. "it alarmed me that the number of people in the room...was so large ". 2. "it alarmed me the fact that the number of people in the room...was so large ". HOTmag (talk) 23:09, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Because neither of those was the sentence I am in fact enquiring about? I don't actually understand your response. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:21, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

The example in the dummy article's section that I linked to is

It seems that John loves coffee. (corresponding "raised" sentence: John seems to love coffee.)

Here the referent that John loves coffee appears after it and the verb. Loraof (talk) 00:28, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

No, that's not comparable to my example. In mine, "It alarmed me" could form an entire grammatical sentence of its own. The rest ("the number of people ... lives") is just tacked on to the end. In your example, nothing could be removed without violating sense and grammar. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:41, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

[it alarmed me the number of people in the room] [who were disappointed in themselves, their partners or their lives]. Surely the second part is a subordinate sentence but it may be dropped. Now we have [it alarmed me [the number [of people [in the room]]]]] that reveals even a simpler sentence: it alarmed me the number. Now we have to decide if to alarm smb. smth. is a proper usage. I think there has been missed the preposition with.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 02:06, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

That may be technically correct, but the sentence as published is definitely colloquially grammatical, at least down here. Perhaps not the best usage for a newspaper, but you take what you get in papers these days. Similar to "It frightens me how often you're dead wrong". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:17, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

"That may be technically correct ". Correct, and that's what I meant in my previous response. I guess you don't find any technical problem in "it seems - that he is dead wrong ", do you? If you don't (as I guess), then I guess you don't find any technical problem in "it alarmed me - that the number was so large " (either), do you? If you don't (as I guess), then I guess you don't find any technical problem in "it alarmed me - the fact - that the number was so large " (either), do you? If you don't (as I guess), then (apparently) you should find no technical problem in "it alarmed me - the large number ". HOTmag (talk) 07:38, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Not sure what this is about, HOTmag. My query is not about the technical correctness, or lack thereof, of the sentence published. (I've already asserted that it's descriptively grammatical, but I've also already said it's not great style.) I am seeking an analysis of it, and what I've been given so far has not hit the mark. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:48, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

"I am seeking an analysis of it ". Yeah, I got it from the very beginning, and that's why I gave a few simpler sentences whose analysis is very similar (if not identical) to the one you're seeking. I guess you can quite easily analyze the sentence: "it seems - that he is dead wrong ", can't you? If you can (as I guess), then I guess you accept this analysis also when applied to the sentence: "it alarmed me - that the number was so large ", don't you? If you do (as I guess), then I guess you accept this analysis also when applied to the sentence: "it alarmed me - the fact - that the number was so large ", don't you? If you do (as I guess), then you should apparently accept this analysis also when applied to the sentence: "it alarmed me - the large number ". HOTmag (talk) 08:22, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

If that's an analysis, it's not the type of analysis I'm seeking. Thanks anyway.

OK, let me put it another way. What role does "the number of people in the room who were disappointed in themselves, their partners or their lives" play in the sentence I posted? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:58, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

OK, let me put it another way. What role, does the part "that the number was so large " - play in the sentence: "it alarmed me that the number was so large " ? HOTmag (talk) 10:21, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Jack that this is an unusual construction that may not be covered in standard grammars. For me it is on the edge of grammaticality, but the fact remains that it was written, probably by a native speaker, and it is readily understandable. How you would analyse it grammatically depends on what kind of grammar you want to apply. The "it" is a dummy pronoun, we all agree. We know that the sentence "That it was so noisy alarmed me" can be recast as "It alarmed me that it was so noisy." The "that" can perhaps be dropped: "It alarmed it was so noisy", although I find the version with the "that" definitely preferable. But can we transform "The noise the children were making alarmed me" into "?It annoyed me the noise the children were making"? That doesn't work for me at all. If that works for you, what about transforming "The noisy children woke me up" into "*It woke me up the noisy children"? There are clearly limits to the use of the dummy pronoun "it". Where are those limits? Itsmejudith (talk) 13:19, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

A similar fine construction might be "I attended a funeral procession. And it was disconcerting the number of people there that were smiling." Thus the "it" above is referring to the event "I recently did a workshop about self-esteem", which alarmed him (the object of alarmed). I'm pretty sure the rest is a subordinate clause (Disclaimer: my knowledge of grammar is sketchy at best) since "...the number of people in the room who were disappointed in themselves, their partners or their lives." is not a sentence. -Modocc (talk) 15:07, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

No, what alarmed her was not the workshop on self-esteem, but the number of people in the room who were disappointed in themselves, their partners or their lives. The fact that that series of words is not a sentence is exactly the point. It operates as if it were the subject of "alarmed", even though "it" is already the subject. That's why I talk above about a "split subject". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:37, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

It's a complex sentence. To understand the "it" one must understand the nature of subordinate clauses which is to add the relevant information. Here we have an event, a workshop (his), plus the adverbial clause which is the latter part that is simply missing the subordinate conjunction "because". --Modocc (talk) 18:54, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I need to stay away from this desk. I certainly agree that he was alarmed by the number of people that were disappointed at his workshop. --Modocc (talk) 20:29, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

You're making this harder than it is. "the number" is the subject of "alarmed"; "it" is expletive so that there's a dummy subject before the verb. Peter Grey (talk) 19:34, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

That makes more sense. --Modocc (talk) 19:39, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Aha, User:Peter Grey, so you're saying there's a dummy subject (before the verb) as well as a "real" subject (after the verb)? Is this sort of construction described anywhere? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:05, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Just the first hit from a very cursory search: [1] (with further refs there). You'll find a bit more if you google for "nominal extraposition". A full-scale academic treatment is here: Michaelis, Laura & Knud Lambrecht. 1996. Toward a construction-based theory of language function: the case of nominal extraposition. Language 72: 215–247. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:41, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Nominal Extraposition! That's exactly what I was after. Thanks. I could almost say "It's amazing how long it took to find the right answer". Our article Extraposition doesn't give an example of this particular class of sentence, but does discuss the general concept. Thanks to all who weighed in. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:09, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Resolved