word meaning - Difference between "idiot" and "dummy"? - English ...
May 20, 2020 · Although idiot and dummy do commonly have the same meaning, the use of idiot in this joking phrase draws particular attention to a specific sense of idiot. From Merriam-Webster's …
"There is some" or "There are some"- which is correct?
Nov 4, 2022 · Initial There's is OK before anything. When it's at the beginning of the sentence, it's just a dummy, with no meaning or plural, and it's reified into one word before anything plural can happen in …
grammar - why we need dummy subjects and it's usage? - English …
Oct 28, 2017 · Here is my question. If something exists in some place then we use adverbs of place. So adverbs can fulfill the use of existence or presence of something. Then why we need dummy …
It - Preparatory subject - English Language Learners Stack Exchange
May 3, 2024 · There is no question of dummy "it" being a preparatory element, since the elements that follow it do not give the meaning if "it". "It" is, then, just a dummy element serving the syntactic …
dummy pronouns - Can we use "It varies a lot" at the beginning of a …
Apr 16, 2024 · The term dummy pronoun refers to the function of a word in a particular sentence, not a property of individual words. For example, it in the example from the previous paragraph is a dummy …
pronouns - What exactly is a dummy-it? - English Language Learners ...
Dec 12, 2023 · "Dummy it refers to nothing at all; it simply serves a grammatical function. In other words, dummy it has a grammatical meaning but no lexical meaning." Here, there are clear meanings and …
word meaning - "Hi there!" -- What does this 'there' mean? - English ...
Jan 5, 2016 · Footnote: "there" isn't the dummy subject in these greetings. "There" is a dummy subject mostly in constructions there is or there are, or before certain verbs in certain contexts.
pronouns - English Language Learners Stack Exchange
Sep 20, 2023 · It's an anticipatory "it", as "it" could be replaced with "you joining us". It's not a dummy as it does actually refer to something specific. The second is the same, although calling it anticipatory …
Using "they" in tag questions with everybody/nobody etc
Jun 9, 2021 · In English, existential clauses usually use the dummy subject construction (also known as expletive) with there, as in "There are boys in the yard"… In the OP's sentence, the subject is not …
grammar - Can the word "THIS" be a dummy subject? For example: …
Dec 4, 2022 · 5 I think the "dummy subject"you are talking about is that which is known as an expletive subject. A good example is It is raining. In the text you quote I don't believe this is used in quite the …