A Linguistic Analysis of Dummy subject It

Abstract

The term reference has already been used to contrast with denotation. It is also used in a useful, but wider sense, to contrast with sense, to distinguish between two very different, though related, aspects of meaning. Reference deals with the relationship between the linguistic element, words,sentences, etc. and the non - linguistic world of experience. Sense relates to the complex system of relationship that holds between The linguistic elements themselves, it is concerned only with intra – linguistic relations. (Palmer, 1988: 30). Perhaps, the most interesting linguistic phenomenon of all is the idea. That we have to recognize the unity of English sentence, paragraph and even a text partly by the grammatical structure of clause and sentence , but more important , by its semantic integrity , by cohesive relation between an element in the text and some other element which is crucial to the interpretation of it.(Trotter,1980 :109). Thus, Hallilay and Hassan (1976:2)state that a text as well as a sentence are both semantic and grammatical Units. Accordingly, reference is one type by which we can achieve what is called cohesion. So reference is a semantic relation (identification or comparsion) between a reference item and its referent, e.g., pronoun, whose primary function is deictic (exophoric reference to the context of situation), have a secondary (endphoric) function of referring backward (anaphoric usage) or rarely , forward (cataphoric usage) (ibid:9). This paper tries to analyses the Dummy subjects It linguistically with paying a great attention to great linguists’ considerations.