Impersonal expressions in English and Indonesian
"It seems like", "it feels as if", "it's said that"… what exactly are these its referring to?
These are called impersonal verbs. And the it in question is called a dummy pronoun. They don't really point to anything, but rather, they highlight the action — what's being done.
What's interesting about these expressions is that, when translated to a language like, say, Indonesian, they completely change form.
It is time to … --> Waktunya …
From dummy pronoun–copula–noun–preposition in English to noun-nya in Indonesian. Here's some more examples, but this time it becomes verb-nya.
It seems like … --> Kelihatannya … / Sepertinya …
It feels as if … --> Rasanya …
It's said that … --> Katanya …
It means that … --> Artinya …
It turns out (that) … --> Rupanya …
It's best if … --> Sebaiknya …
It's apparent that in Indonesian, the structure of the phrase completely changes. Where in English it goes dummy pronoun–verb–conjunction, in Indonesian it just goes verb-nya (not sure if this is a passive construction or just an inverted clause, or if some of it is actually just noun-nya), se-adjective-nya, or preposition-nya. I'm pretty sure -nya works as the dummy pronoun here, but that's not always the case, see this next example.
It's raining outside. --> Di luar sedang hujan.
It's dark. --> Gelap.
It's over. --> Sudahlah.
In this case, the dummy pronoun isn't even present in Indonesian. It just bulldozes right into the predicate.
I feel like there's so much more I can talk about, but I think that's all for now. I'm sorry if this wasn't too conclusive, but it's definitely a good snack for thought.
