Formal It-patterns

It does not refer to a particular thing here. It is a dummy or anticipatory subject, occupying the grammatical subject position before be. The following that-clause or to-infinitive supplies the content being evaluated and is often described as the postponed notional subject.

This complete English declarative construction needs an expressed grammatical subject. Do not omit it merely because it adds no independent referential meaning.

Many adjectives, including necessary, essential, important and advisable, allow both a that-clause and a to-infinitive. The choice depends on meaning, emphasis and how the participants should be identified. Not every adjective permits all these patterns.

Without an explicit subject of the infinitive, the performer may be general or understood from context. For + noun or pronoun names the performer directly. A that-clause has its own subject and finite verb. Both an infinitive and a that-clause can contain passive or perfect forms; these are not exclusive to that-clauses.

ADJ means adjective, such as important; NP means noun phrase or pronoun, such as the manager or her; V means verb. To-V is a to-infinitive, such as to notify. In a that-clause, choose the verb form according to the adjective’s meaning and the context.

Adjectives in this pattern can be grouped by what they evaluate in the that-clause. Adjectives of necessity or urgency, such as essential, vital, imperative, necessary, important and advisable, can evaluate a desired action. In the mandative subjunctive, the verb takes the bare base form for every person: arrive, not arrives. Formal British English often expresses the same meaning with should + base form; both patterns are correct. Ordinary indicative tense forms also occur in some British uses, so this is not a universal ban on the indicative.

Adjectives concerning facts or likelihood, such as obvious, clear, evident, likely, unlikely, certain and surprising, evaluate a state of affairs or its probability rather than making a demand. The that-clause then keeps ordinary tense and subject agreement, as in other subordinate clauses.

For identifies the participant after necessary, difficult, easy, important, possible and safe: It is necessary for her to attend. The evaluation concerns participation, difficulty or possibility. Check the whole sentence’s meaning: the mere possibility of saying She is necessary does not decide the preposition.

When an adjective judges a personal quality shown by someone’s action—kind, foolish, wise, generous, careless, thoughtless or rude—the person is introduced with of. A useful test is whether the adjective can directly describe the person: She was kind to help = It was kind of her to help.

Negation can appear in two different places, with a substantial change in meaning. Negating the main evaluation, as in it is not necessary or it is not likely, removes the requirement or reduces the likelihood: the action is optional or unlikely, not prohibited.

Negating the verb inside a mandative that-clause, as in it is necessary that … not V, expresses a requirement that the action should NOT occur. It is not necessary that you attend makes attendance optional; It is necessary that you not attend requires non-attendance. The communicative intentions differ despite the same adjective necessary.

Other constructions also begin with it but work differently. Anticipatory it with a reporting verb, as in It is said/believed/reported that…, frames information through a passive VERB rather than an adjective. This is a related but separate rule.

Cleft sentences, such as It was the results that surprised the committee or It was Maria who solved it, highlight a particular noun phrase or adverbial with who or that, rather than evaluate a situation through an adjective. This lesson specifically covers an EVALUATIVE ADJECTIVE after it + be.

The basic pattern is dummy it + a passive reporting verb + a clause giving the content. Formal writing commonly introduces that clause with that. That can be omitted in some uses, as in It is said she knows, but this lesson practises the full pattern.

The form of be changes with the time reference, while the participle stays the same: is estimated, was estimated, has been estimated and will be estimated all retain estimated.

V3 means the past participle: reported, believed or shown. Is, was, has been and will be locate the passive reporting in time; the time of the event inside the that-clause is determined separately.

Not every passive verb fits this pattern. It uses verbs of speech, thought or perception, including believe, think, argue, claim, suggest, estimate, report, acknowledge, assume, understand, expect, consider, show, reveal, note, feel, accept, confirm, find, recognise and rumour. Each conveys a different source or character of the claim.

Believe and think convey an opinion; estimate an assessment; report a report; acknowledge an admission; and assume an assumption. Suggest can introduce a proposal or a tentative conclusion. Show and reveal present content as established by evidence, but the words alone do not guarantee truth.

Widely, generally, increasingly, commonly and largely often come before the participle: is widely believed, has been widely reported. Other positions can be possible, but may change which part of the sentence the adverb modifies.

Widely believed means many people share the belief; increasingly recognised means recognition is growing over time; generally accepted describes broad, near-consensus acceptance.

Formally, not in is believed negates the existence of the belief, whereas not inside the that-clause negates its content. In ordinary use, It isn't believed that… is also often understood as a belief that something is not so, through negative raising. If the distinction matters, spell out the position clearly.

Believed and estimated are part of a passive chain with be, so use isn't, is not or wasn't to make it negative. Do not use auxiliary do: doesn't believed and didn't reported are not grammatical verb chains.

Impersonal passives are common in reports, news and academic writing. The same content can have a named source: Analysts think…; The report states… Conversation also commonly uses people think or some say.

A named source is entirely suitable in a formal report and often makes it more precise. Choose active or passive according to the intended focus, rather than a supposed ban on personal subjects.

It also appears in two other constructions in this topic. It + adjective + that/to, as in It is likely that… or It is important to…, contains an adjective, not a passive reporting verb. It evaluates likelihood or importance rather than reporting an opinion. That rule is not practised here.

Cleft it, as in It was the finance team that raised the concern, does a different job: it focuses or contrasts part of a sentence instead of leaving an opinion's source unnamed. These constructions are covered in neighbouring rules in the topic.

A third related structure offers another way to express the content: X is believed to be Y instead of It is believed that X is Y. X itself becomes the subject rather than dummy it. Compare the two frames to decide how to arrange the information.

In scientific or journalistic writing, an author may report an opinion, estimate or rumour without naming its source because there are many sources, the source is unofficial, the author distances themselves from responsibility for the claim, or the content matters more than who holds the view.

The passive permits omission of a source, but does not determine the report's honesty or reliability. If the source matters, add it, as in It is believed by some economists that…, or use an active sentence.

In the basic pattern, it is followed by be, then the focused element and the following clause. That suits different kinds of focus; who suits people. Choose is or was according to perspective. It is Anna who won yesterday is possible when identifying the winner now of an earlier event.

A common mistake is to put that immediately after was, leaving the focus on the wrong side of the linker or omitting it altogether. This breaks the construction.

Be agrees with it, not with the focused element. Use third-person singular it is / it was even when the focus is plural.

An it-cleft can foreground the subject performing an action, its object, or a circumstance of time, place or reason. The type of focus does not change the frame; it changes which part of the simple sentence moves immediately after be.

That is a common neutral linker in this cleft pattern. Who is also used for a person. When and where occur with suitable time or place focuses in some constructions, but naturalness depends on the particular pattern. Do not substitute linkers mechanically.

Both who and that are possible for a person. Who explicitly marks a human referent, but that is also natural and does not make the identification less precise.

It wasn't/isn't until… that… highlights the earliest point at which something happened or happens: 'only then'. Context may suggest lateness, but lateness is not an obligatory meaning of the construction.

When expressing that an event happened only at that point, the that-clause is affirmative: It wasn't until Friday that the report was finished. Do not mechanically add not to it because the opening is negative.

A negative that-clause is possible when non-occurrence or absence is itself the intended content. Two negatives are therefore not always an error. Check which event and time you intend to describe.

A pseudo-cleft or wh-cleft creates emphasis without initial It: What + [clause] + is/was + [focus]. The focus comes at the END, after was, rather than between be and the linker as in an it-cleft.

Both strategies can present the same fact: It was a faulty valve that caused the pressure drop and What caused the pressure drop was a faulty valve communicate the same event through different syntax. An it-cleft often gives more direct emphasis or correction; a pseudo-cleft can reveal the cause more gradually.

The most common pseudo-cleft starts with what. Other wh-words, such as who, where and why, also occur in related constructions, but this lesson practises only the it-cleft ↔ what-pseudo-cleft pair. Wider pseudo-cleft patterns are outside its scope.

Clefts are natural in spoken and written English. Use one for clear emphasis or contrast. Without that purpose, a simple sentence is usually easier to read.

Do not confuse an it-cleft with neighbouring patterns using it. Anticipatory it with a reporting verb, It is said/believed/reported that X, postpones the entire clause rather than extracting one element. It + adjective + that/to, as in It is important that X or It is necessary to X, is an evaluative structure without this contrastive focus. Neither splits a simple proposition around one extracted element in the same way.

An it-cleft redistributes emphasis; it does not verify or guarantee the truth of its focus. The writer must supply accurate facts. The construction only organises their presentation.