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It is said that he was murdered. /It is nice to meet someone. /She is difficult to persuade.

About 'to meet someone'. Do Americans read it the same as 'that he was murdered', which is a Real Subject, or as 'to persuade', which is a complement?

Kim Hui-jeong
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  • What do you mean by "Real Subject"? – BillJ Apr 18 '20 at 10:39
  • 'It' in the first sentence is not actually the real subject. The real subject, 'he was murdered' has been moved to the back to avoid a long subject existing in the usual position. – Kim Hui-jeong Apr 18 '20 at 10:42
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    This is not a single question. Does this answer your (tough-movement) question? To infinitive used after adjective – Edwin Ashworth Apr 18 '20 at 10:45
  • @Kim Hui-jeong As BillJ indicates, we can't just use terminology we might be familiar with here and assume (1) OP will be cognisant of it / (2) it's the standard (definitive) terminology / or even (3) it's the most widely accepted terminology. Different grammars might even reject rather than precise the term. A specifying definition and a citation are essential. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 18 '20 at 10:57
  • Syntactically, "it" is a dummy element serving the syntactic purpose of filling the subject position; the extraposed element doesn’t give the meaning (reference) of it but serves simply as a semantic argument of the VP. The extraposed version is far more likely than the basic version "To meet someone is nice". – BillJ Apr 18 '20 at 10:58

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