Infinitive Clauses With Impersonal IT

It is the only impersonal pronoun in English. The following are some of the important uses of it.

It can be used as a subject to an impersonal verb.

• It is raining.
• It is snowing on the mountains.
• It is Sunday today.
• ‘What is the time now?’ ‘It is 5 o’clock.’
• It is always cloudy on the hills.

The pronoun it is used as a provisional subject, when the real subject is an infinitive.

• It is not easy to defeat him. (More natural than ‘To defeat him is not easy.’)
• It is dangerous to play with fire. (More natural than ‘To play with fire is dangerous.’)

It is used to represent a noun in the neuter gender.

• I am taking the meat back to the shop because it isn’t good.

It can be used to represent a young baby of either sex.

• The baby is crying. It must be hungry.
• I did not disturb the child because it was sleeping.