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I am not sure what is the underlying rule for when the use of “it” is appropriate and when “he / she”. Consider the following two examples:

  1. There is a lady at the door. It is my aunt.
  2. Do you know the lady with the hat? Yes, she is my aunt.

My choice of “it” vs “she” is based more on a feel rather than a rule and my examples could be wrong. There is a related post which explains that “it” is used as an expletive, but I am not sure whether that is a full answer in these cases. Could someone please explain how to analyze the options?

Laurel
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Satish Vasan
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    It's my aunt at the door is grammatical, and therefore so is it's my aunt. The it is a dummy and doesn't refer to your aunt. – John Lawler Oct 05 '22 at 14:43
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    Other related questions: there was a previous question about this which was closed as a duplicate of a question about "It's a boy!" which has some detailed answers. – Stuart F Oct 05 '22 at 15:58
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    In your first example, the "it" is not referring to a particular person, but the "situation" of a potentially-unknown person at the door. Mnemonic: the letters "it" are contained in "situation." – MarkHu Oct 06 '22 at 00:26
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    I guess the "it" here is the same "it" as in "It's raining outside." – Arthur Oct 06 '22 at 07:24
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    @StuartF “It’s a boy!” is a special case, because bebies can be called it (a rare holdover of grammatical gender in English, going back before it split from the other West Germanic languages). For example, Exodus 2:9 in the KJV: “And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.” – Davislor Oct 06 '22 at 08:48
  • I feel the accepted answer, while probably correct as far as it goes, shouldn't be accepted. It doesn't really explain the situation or give any reasoning, and if you leave the question open for a while you're likely to get much more detailed answers. – N. Virgo Oct 06 '22 at 11:46
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    @Arthur It's a different “it”. You can say “That is my aunt” with basically the same meaning, but not “*That's raining outside”. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Oct 06 '22 at 12:27
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    @Gilles'SO-stopbeingevil' Switching from "It's my aunt" to "That's my aunt" changes the meaning of the sentence in a way that wouldn't make sense if we were instead talking about the rain outside. I don't see that as the conclusive evidence that you seem to see it as. – Arthur Oct 06 '22 at 12:53
  • @Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' The French use 'He's raining,' I suppose. But 'weather it' as a subset (or not) of 'dummy it' needs an article (and probably several have been written). They're certainly 'non-referential' (with respect to clearly identifiable NPs explicitly mentioned in the text). – Edwin Ashworth Oct 06 '22 at 16:40
  • I think that "it" is a state of being in your examples, not a pronoun. "There's a phone call for you. Do you know who it is? It is your aunt." Yes, I am well aware this example is a bit dated given the prevalence of cell phones. – MonkeyZeus Oct 07 '22 at 15:00
  • Fun fact, the linguistic term for this use of "it" (as a pronoun that doesn't actually refer to anything at all) is "expletive." – A. R. Oct 07 '22 at 20:41

3 Answers3

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In a comment John Lawler wrote:

It's my aunt at the door is grammatical, and therefore so is it's my aunt. The it is a dummy and doesn't refer to your aunt.

tchrist
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'It' has been used as an ‘empty’ or 'dummy' subject It is ‘empty’ because it doesn’t refer to 'my aunt'.

She is my aunt. 'She' refers to the lady.

[ It's getting late.

It's raining. ]

Mohammad Farukh Ahmad
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There's a third option, which is the "singular they". This option is if the gender/person is unknown, but you know that they're a person. For instance, take this conversation:

"Is someone at the door?"

"Yes, I can see its silhouette", instead you'd answer

"Yes, I can see their silhouette."

Because you can't see the gender of the person but you know it's a person, you'd use "they" instead of "it", or instead of "he/she"

Robin Clower
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  • This is also preferred when a person prefers not to be identified by a singular gender or does not identify with one. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Oct 07 '22 at 04:02
  • @RockPaperLz-MaskitorCasket it's possibly worth noting that that's a fairly recent invention and while it's rapidly gaining acceptance, there are still plenty of folks who do not consider it grammatical – A C Oct 07 '22 at 20:59
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    "Is someone at the door?" "Yes, I can see their silhouette; it is my aunt at the door." – Aaron McMillin Oct 10 '22 at 18:17