Bagaimana contoh kalimat impersonal 'it' bahasa Inggris?

Apa itu impersonal 'it'?

Sebelum membahas lengkap apa itu impersonal 'it', perhatikan kalimat berikut ini:

1. I liked the book and bought it.
2. It is nice to be important, but it is more important to be nice.

It pada kalimat pertama merujuk pada dan menggantikan kata the book. It seperti ini berfungsi sebagai kata ganti (pronoun). It pada kalimat kedua tidak merujuk pada atau menggantikan sesuatu, it seperti ini disebut impersonal 'it'. Bila it tidak merujuk pada atau menggantikan sesuatu, ‘it’ hanyalah mengisi suatu fungsi pola kalimat. Impersonal 'it' kebanyakan dipakai dalam kalimat yang menyatakan: waktu, cuaca, jarak, dan pengenalan diri. Contoh:

• waktu (time) It is Sunday.
  What time is it? It is ten o’clock.
• cuaca (weather) It’s cold.
  Is it raining?
• jarak (distance) How far is it to New York?
  How long does it take to get there?
• pengenalan (identification) Is that the new teacher? Yes it is.
  Someone is knocking at the door. Who is it?

Penggunaan lain dari impersonal it

1. in subject position sebagai subjek dalam pola kalimat:

A

It + be + adjective

• It is difficult to understand the lesson.
• It would be nice seeing him again.

Arti kalimat pertama serupa dengan ‘To understand the lesson is difficult’, dan arti kalimat kedua serupa dengan ‘Seeing him again would be nice’.

B

It + be + noun + ...

• It is a pity to spend the money that way.
• It is a difficult thing doing everything by yourself.

C
It + linking word + adjective

• It became useless to go on.
• It appears no good going on.

D
It + verb + that clause

• It seemed that he was sick.
• It happened that I was out of town.

2. Sebagai objek dalam/pada kalimat:

S + V + it + adjective

• I think it wrong to cheat in the examination.
• I found it difficult to tell her the news.

Note: a) It bisa digunakan sebagai suatu pengantar subjek atau pengantar objek (‘introductory’ or ‘preparatory’ subject or object) manakala subjek atau objek yang sebenarnya dari suatu kalimat berupa suatu bentuk infinitive atau klausa.

• To remember all their names is difficult. It is difficult to remember all their names.
• That he didn ’t want to speak to me was made clear. -> He made it clear That he didn ’t want to speak to me.

b) It digunakan sebagai subjek kosong (empty subject—kalimat yang sebenarnya tidak memiliki subjek) dalam ungkapan yang mengacu pada waktu, cuaca, atau suhu.

• It is ten o’clock.
• It ’s Monday.
• It rained for three days.
• It can be very warm in September.

c) It dapat bermakna keadaan kini (‘the present situation’).

• It’s awful!—I’ve got so much work I don’t know where to start.
• Isn’t it lovely here?

d) It berfungsi untuk memberi penekanan pada kata sifat/adjective (complement) dan atau kata kerja (verbs) untuk menunjukkan hal ynag penting (importance), sulit (difficulty), kemungkinan (possibility), kegunaan (usefulness), kelumrahan (normality), waktu yang dibutuhkan (time taken), reaksi emosional (emotional reaction), kebenaran (truth), kenyamanan (convenience), gagasan yang terbersit pada seseorang (ideas coming to one’s mind), dan penampakan (appearance).

• It’s nice to be with you.
• It’s essential to book in advance.
• It’s not easy to get him to change his mind.
• It’s difficult to understand what she’s talking about.
• It’s interesting that you should like him.
• It is probable that we’ll be a little late.
• It is very astonishing that she refused to talk to you.
• It worried me a bit that she didn’t phone me.
• It took me two hours to get home last night..
• It appears that Seanu might change his mind.
• It doesn’t interest me whether you succeed or not.
• It doesn’t matter when you arrive—just come when you can.
• It wasn’t very clear what she meant.

e) sebagai subjek pengantar, it dapat juga mengisyaratkan suatu penekanan gagasan pada cleft sentence—dimana suatu kata benda bertindak sebagai suatu komplemen dari konstruksi it’s, seperti pada kalimat:

• It was Mr. Setiawan who came on Tuesday, (not other person)
• It was on Tuesday that Mr. Setiawan came, (not on the other days)

f) Jika objek dari suatu kalimat berupa bentuk infinitive atau that-clause—umumnya terjadi mankala suatu kata sifat dirangkai dengan objek, penggunaan it sebagai pengantar objek sangat dianjurkan. Oleh karena itu, it pada kalimat di bawah ini tidak memiliki makna apa pun, kehadirannya hanya sebagai pelengkap salah satu unsur kalimat belaka.

• Prabu made it clear that he disagreed.
• I thought it peculiar that she hadn’t written.
• The blister on my foot made it painful to walk.
• I find it difficult to talk to you about anything serious.
• I think it important that we should keep calm.