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I don't want to get too bogged down in exactly what constitutes a dummy pronoun usage (personally, I'd include things like Who's there? It's John, even if not everyone else does).

But on this recent ELL question I wrote the comment I'm not convinced the possessive form its can ever be a true "dummy" usage.

The only reason I said I'm "not convinced" is because I couldn't think of any examples. Can anyone either prove me wrong or explain why I'm right?

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FumbleFingers
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  • I can't find any evidence either: http://awelu.srv.lu.se/grammar-and-words/selective-mini-grammar/pronouns/dummy-pronouns/ –  Oct 09 '16 at 12:58
  • As far as I know (though I’ll admit I have no sources for the claim), dummy it can only function as the subject of a clause. That is, the full subject. Since its can only ever be a determiner, it can never function as the full subject of a clause. I’d say the two are mutually exclusive and there is no possibility of a dummy it. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Oct 09 '16 at 13:10
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    @Janus: That makes a lot of sense. Without wishing to get too precise about exactly how one defines "dummy pronoun", I suppose it's reasonable to say the usage only arises in the first place because the syntactic* context requires a subject* (where *semantically* we're unwilling or unable to explicitly identify that subject). – FumbleFingers Oct 09 '16 at 14:19
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    'It's doing its best to rain.' – Edwin Ashworth Oct 09 '16 at 14:31
  • @EdwinAshworth Nice! But doesn't 'its' refer to (the first) 'It' (the dummy)? – Řídící Oct 09 '16 at 14:35
  • Some would distinguish 'dummy it' from 'weather it' anyway; these are both weather it. The unarguable dummy usage ('It's a long way to Tipperary') is a fronting device; a possessive doesn't come into the picture. Think of the French equivalent. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 09 '16 at 14:43
  • @EdwinAshworth I mean that if one says "Rambo is shooting. He's doing his best." then the 'his' refers to 'He', not (directly) to 'Rambo'. Right? Wrong? – Řídící Oct 09 '16 at 14:53
  • Surely referentiality here is a transitivity (maths sense) property: his refers to He refers to Rambo. If I say 'It's cold and it's miserable', I wouldn't start analysing whether the second 'it' had an antecedent – they're both just function words. A dummy is only there as a place-holding substitutionary device. With my tongue-in-cheek example, I'd guess that the people who started using the double-it format realised that they were being rather non-standard. 'It's cold and it needs to do something about its coldness' would be extremely non-standard / quirky. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 09 '16 at 15:03
  • When people say 'surely' that usually means that it is not quite true (or simply false). :) In this case I think that 'his' refers to 'He'. Full stop. As, surely, grammar does not extend to multiple sentences. – Řídící Oct 09 '16 at 15:10
  • I am not sure what to do, even as I am writing this post it's* taking its time for the letters to appear on the screen.* I suppose both "it"'s there must refer to the same thing, but is that definitely "this post", or is it just a dummy? – FumbleFingers Oct 09 '16 at 15:34
  • I would think that 'its' refers to "it'. Even if 'it' were a dummy, then 'its' still isn't, despite (or: because of) 'it' being a dummy. – Řídící Oct 09 '16 at 15:39
  • @Keep these mind: Well, there does seem to be a difference between my example and Edwin's - syntactically, his construction requires the second (possessive) pronoun, whereas mine doesn't. In which context it seems to me that if we do remove *its* from my version, it's much harder to justify the idea that the "it" of *it's taking time for the letters to appear* actually refers to "this post". – FumbleFingers Oct 09 '16 at 15:49

2 Answers2

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As I'm sure you know, one of English's "small clause" constructions consists of a subject and a gerund phrase, where the subject may be either in the objective/accusative case ("them leaving was a surprise") or the possessive/genitive case ("their leaving was a surprise").

This is the case even when the subject is a dummy it. Hence, we find the following (real) examples:

  • […] the reader is conscious of its being John the Baptist who speaks these words: […] [link]
  • […] the possibility of its raining […] [link]
  • […] most philosophers are committed to its being impossible that 1 + 1 = 3 […] [link]

though in all three cases, it could have been used instead (at the risk of irritating prescriptivists).

That said, I don't think this use of dummy its is ever possible with nouns as opposed to gerunds; for example, although "them/their leaving was a surprise" can be reworded as "their departure was a surprise", "its raining was a surprise" obviously can't be reworded as *"its rain was a surprise".

Consequently, I also don't think that the non-subject uses of dummy it have corresponding uses of dummy its. English does have an "objective genitive" — consider e.g. "her nomination", meaning "her being nominated" — but it's comparatively restricted, and I don't think it ever works with gerunds, only with nouns. (The nouns can be identical to gerunds, as in e.g. "his killing at the hands of […]", but I think they do have to be nouns: cf. "a series of killings".)

ruakh
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    Excellent thinking! Hadn’t thought of this possibility at all. Those examples pretty much have to be considered dummy its_’es (unless you count weather _it as a separate thing, in which case the second one isn’t). They all sound quite bizarre to me (I would perforce use it, prescriptivists be damned), but I can’t deny that they’re structurally sound and that the only possible reason they could be ungrammatical is that they’re possessive dummy _it_’s. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Oct 10 '16 at 09:18
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    What @Janus said. I must admit that if the possibility of its* being used like this* had occurred to me when I was posing the question here, I'd probably have just dismissed it (thinking "That doesn't work!"). But of course it is valid, and has been used repeatedly in print. – FumbleFingers Oct 10 '16 at 12:59
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To start with, "its" can both be possessive pronoun(PP) as well as possessive adjective.(PA) " The kennel is its"(PP)...it belongs to ( the dog). "It is its kennel(PA). In my opinion, I don't think the genitive " its" can and should be used as dummy. On the other hand, "it's" can. "It", IMO, which is a personal pronoun should never be confused with " its".

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  • Nah. It's not idiomatically viable to say The kennel is its. You can only do that with mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs. – FumbleFingers Oct 10 '16 at 12:48
  • It’s cannot be used as a dummy. Dummy it can be fused with is just like regular it, but the result is not a ‘dummy it’s_’. And as FumbleFingers says, using _its as a pronoun is unusual at best; in your example here, I would call it downright ungrammatical. You can find cases where it’s at least borderline acceptable, like Iain Banks’ “Claiming the vengeance that was so surely its, exacting the price its enemies all deserved to pay” from Algebraist (2005); but in general, it’s unidiomatic or ungrammatical. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Oct 10 '16 at 14:56
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    Sorry but there is nothing IDIOMATIC about this. Plus, I don't see why THE KENNEL IS ITS should be wrong, except of course if you have a citation. If you can use MINE, YOURS, HERS, THEIRS, OURS and HIS like that, why on earth can't you use ITS. Consider this, THE GOVERNMENT HAS A CHOICE TO MAKE...THE CHOICE IS ITS TO MAKE. The puppy belongs to that dog...it is that dog's...it is its. Perfectly grammatical. Cheers. – user200193 Oct 10 '16 at 21:55
  • Plus, it's can very much be used as a dummy. Who's knocking?... It's I...you can simply say I. . it's as dummy would sound like cleft. Thanks. – user200193 Oct 10 '16 at 22:01
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    @FumbleFingers I’m afraid I must stand with the answerer on this one and demand a citation for your assertion that one cannot use its as a possessive pronoun the way one can hers and theirs. Here, in contrast, is a citation for the contrary proposition that one can indeed do that very thing; several citations, in point of fault. Elsewhere on this cite Lawler himself has said that this is completely possible, but as it was, of course, nestled in a comment, it is proving a challenge to search for. – tchrist Oct 10 '16 at 22:35
  • @tchrist: As you say, OED gives just one citation for a usage I personally don't find acceptable as a "bare" noun. I'd happily accept *its* as a possessive determiner (or whatever you'd call *its own), but it wouldn't be a "dummy it" anyway, since in that Henry VIII* context it clearly refers to *the last [day]*... – FumbleFingers Oct 11 '16 at 11:36
  • ...which interesting should apparently be *the next day* (I agree with the writer there who points out that this extended and somewhat tortured metaphor only makes sense if we swap *next day* and *last day*). – FumbleFingers Oct 11 '16 at 11:38
  • @tchrist: It may not have been nestled in a comment. – Robusto Oct 11 '16 at 14:12