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What is the meaning of "it" in "What makes it rain" ?

What is the exact difference in meaning between "What makes it rain" and "What makes rain"?

Does "What makes it rain" mean "What makes rain" ?

If so, why is "it" used ?

user22046
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  • If the rain in the sentence is the object, is there any reason to use a the dummy pronoun it for the rain? – user22046 Jul 10 '20 at 03:03
  • We moved a object to the end of the sentence due to its length. but, the object(rain) after the verb(make) is very short, Why is the sentence used the dummy pronoun "it" to refer to the object called the rain? – user22046 Jul 10 '20 at 03:11

1 Answers1

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Well, “What makes rain?” and “What makes it rain?” would yield two different answers. The former could be answered as simply as saying clouds. Or, the former could be answered with a more complex description of the composition of the rain. The answer for the latter would entail a discussion about the moisture content of air, temperatures, dew points, fronts, air masses, pressure gradients, etc.

Dean F.
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