it

English grammar questions, answered by Alan

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azz
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it

Post by azz »

a. The movie scared me so much that it made me a little paranoid.

Can one say what 'it' refers to in that sentence?

Is it the movie or is it the fact that it scared me so much?

I would vote for the latter, although I think grammatically speaking it could be either. In practice it doesn't make a difference, but grammatically speaking there is a difference.

Many thanks
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Alan
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Re: it

Post by Alan »

As you say, essentially a moot pont, but most natives would, I believe, interpret 'it' as referring to the movie.
If you were referring to the fact that the movie scared you, you would probably use a sentential relative constructioon rather than a simple pronoun.
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