It is raining: Philosophy Forums

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It is raining

Banno
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Posted 10/29/09 - 01:52 AM: Subject: It is raining	#1
Another brief question, with perhaps interesting implications. What is the subject in the sentence "it is raining"? I put it to you that there is none. Does anyone agree? Who disagrees, and if so, what do you think the subject is?
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Minyun
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Posted 10/29/09 - 02:47 AM:	#2
It is a prepositional phrase. I think we would have to find out what it was to identify the subject, considering that we do not know what it is in this sentence, then there is no subject (according to standard). It is purely contextual. Maybe there is a subject, but it is only relevant to the speaker. So,I would have to dissagree, there is a subject, in this case it is you who will decide what exactly it is upon further examination. Surely you are referring to something when you say it?

Banno
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Posted 10/29/09 - 03:32 AM:	#3
I disagree. "It" is not a preposition here. But if you think it is a preposition, you ought be able to tell us what it is standing in for. I think its use here is purely grammatical; it does not refer. (Edit: the Oxford and Macquarie seem to agree with me) The upshot: "It is raining" is a sentence with a predicate but no subject. Just a curiosity? But how would you parse this? A predicate with no subject is, as I recall, no a well-formed formula.
Davidson: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. Russel Morris: There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing... Ned: Such is life

Cuthbert
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Posted 10/29/09 - 03:41 AM:	#4
Minyun: Why 'surely'? In saying 'it' he may not be referring to anything at all. In saying 'it's raining' he may be remarking upon the fact that it's raining and by implication referring to the rain. Perhaps each word of an indicative sentence has a reference and the combination of words is a complex name for the fact to which we are referring. We might suppose that it's so. But it doesn't seem to me to be so. And we seem to talk sense without its being so.

Minyun
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Posted 10/29/09 - 04:13 AM:	#5
'Surely' because it refers to the space in which it is raining. That space is the subject. "It is hot" means the air around the speaker is of a temperature which he/she thinks is hot. If I use a word to describe a subject, like it, it does not mean that I no longer talk about a subject. This is an IMO and as I say, according to lexical standards, there is no subject in a prepositional phrase.

Cuthbert
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Posted 10/29/09 - 04:57 AM:	#6
The space is raining and the air is hot? I thought it was the weather that was hot and it was the rain that was raining rain - subject, verb and internal accusative all in one.

Minyun
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Posted 10/29/09 - 05:17 AM:	#7
Perhaps I should better describe it as a 'field' in which a verb can take place, like raining. Cuthbert wrote: I thought it was the weather that was hot What is weather but a mixture of hot/cold air/water molecules? It is raining in a 4kmx4km area, therefor when I say it is raining, I am talking about the area in which it is raining - whatever that area be made up of. It still stands as a subject, atleast in my mind.

play
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Posted 10/29/09 - 05:28 AM:	#8
All nouns could be used as verbs when you realize the Universe is not a thing, nor is it made of things. It is a single, unified process. The cosmos is a "happening." Rain is raining. Trees are treeing. Humans are humaning.
There once was a man who said so, "It seems that I know that I know. But what I would like to see Is the I that knows me when I know that I know that I know."

Cuthbert
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Posted 10/29/09 - 06:37 AM:	#9
True. The goths are gothing, the froth is frothing and the noth is nothing. I read once that some Australian Aboriginal grammars don't distinguish nouns from verbs in the same way as English, so the word for an animal at rest and in movement might be different and word for a snake and a bend in the river might be the same. I suppose English has some vestiges of this.

Willowz
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Posted 10/29/09 - 07:03 AM:	#10
I don't believe it is raining.
This song will prepare you for a good smile.

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