[lit-ideas] Geary's Anaphora (Or a Prop "It"?)
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 23:11:09 EDT
In a message dated 8/22/2004 10:15:51 PM Eastern Standard Time,
atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Wait, are you telling me the man never considered life until he got to the
beach? Wow. No wonder he wanted to kill himself. I'm sure it was all
those girls from Ipanema that gave him purpose. I know they keep me going.
What's the meaning of life? Yes, you guessed it, you dirty old man. But I
wonder why you would cite Bertrand Russell's suicidal thoughts as though
they were somehow aberrant. I don't think I've gone a day since puberty
that I didn't weigh the pros and cons of killing myself. No tomorrow,
surcease of sorrow. All right, maybe not sorrow, I've lived a pretty
pampered life compared to most people in the world. But death would bring
an end to bloody, demanding consciousness, as Paul Stone would call it. No
more what now? what now? what now? what now? Make it stop! Of course
there's always drinking as Paul pointed out. "Nietzsche can teach ya, but
liquor is quicker" as Ogden should have said. That and curiosity. I wonder
if tomorrow it'll be different.
----
Just a note on Geary's interesting ending to his post,
"I wonder if tomorrow it'll be different."
A grammarian may ask (herself), 'it' _what_?
The answer is to look for anaphoric chains.
It cannot be 'curiosity' ("curiosity'll be different"), it cannot be
'drinking' ("drinking'll be different").
The conclusion (from a dreary grammatical point of view) is that 'it' is
what the late Sidney Greenbaum called a "prop it". Another possibility is that
'it' refers to life -- or 'it''s meaning.
Cheers,
JL
ps.
It is raining. In this sentence there is no reference to what 'it' is. Can
this sentence stand alone as grammatically correct?
(http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/it?view=print)
There is nothing wrong with sentences of this type. Grammar books give
different names to it: the Oxford English Grammar by Sidney Greenbaum calls it
prop it.
The pronoun it has four uses: referring, anticipatory, cleft and prop ...
Prop it (or empty it) is used to fill the place of a required function -
generally the subject - but has little or no meaning. It is particularly
frequent
in expressions referring to weather and time:
It's really hot in here
It's a bit late now
Prop it also occurs in functions other than as subject, including some
idiomatic expressions:
I can't make it tomorrow
You wouldn't have enjoyed it
She insisted on going it alone
I'm just taking it easy
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