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When a subject is a whether-clause, it can be extraposed:

[Whether (or not) he comes] makes no difference.　　(basic version)
It makes no difference [whether (or not) he comes].　　(extraposed)

The logical subject is "extraposed", pulled out of its basic position and moved to the end of the sentence. Since the sentence needs a grammatical subject, dummy it appears in its place at the beginning.

Can an if-clause be used as an extraposed subject, too?

*[If he comes] makes no difference.　　(basic version)
It makes no difference [if he comes].　　(extraposed)

Is the extraposed version okay? It's unclear because the basic version seems to be ungrammatical.

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  • It's "natural enough", but note that *whether* is far more common than *if* in such constructions. – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '14 at 17:16
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    Since this question asked about a "real subject", it was clear to me that it was about extraposition. With that in mind, I elaborated on the question a little. It should be clear now that this isn't a duplicate―the other question is not about extraposition. –  Jul 24 '14 at 16:23

1 Answers1

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Yes, that sentence sounds natural. It's a little more common to use "whether" in place of "if" in a sentence like this one--where two options are being presented ('he comes' or 'he doesn't come').

It makes no difference whether he comes or not.

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