Subjects¶
English speakers generally dislike long, complex subjects at the start of a sentence, we often use a dummy it as a placeholder and move the content clause to the end. In CGEL, the clause at the end is called the extraposed subject.
Original: “[That the earth is round] is a fact.”
Extraposed: “It is a fact [that the earth is round].”
The Principle of End-Weight.¶
English speakers generally prefer to place long, complex, or “heavy” constituents at the end of a clause. This is why we use Extraposition.
Top-Heavy (Avoided): [That the committee decided to postpone the vote until next Tuesday] is unfortunate.
Balanced (Preferred): It is unfortunate [that the committee decided to postpone the vote until next Tuesday].
Why do we dislike them?¶
There are three main reasons why we shift long subjects to the back:
Processing Burden: The listener has to hold a massive amount of information in their short-term memory before they even get to the verb (the “action”). If the subject is 15 words long, you might forget how it started by the time you hear the predicate.
The ”New Information” Rule: English typically follows a “Given-before-New” pattern. Subjects are usually “Given” (old info), while the end of the sentence is for “New” (important info). A long content clause usually contains a lot of new, complex information, so it “feels” like it belongs at the end.
Clarity of Structure: Putting the verb early (via the dummy it) allows the listener to understand the framework of the sentence (e.g., “It is likely…”) immediately, rather than waiting for the end of a long clause to find out if the statement is a fact, a possibility, or a disappointment.