1) Search for "it was * who" (sort concordance by RIGHT word); which of the following has been used in line 2?
anticipatory "it"
cleft "it"
referential "it"

2) Search for "it was * that" (sort concordance by LEFT word); which of the following has been used in line 10?
anticipatory "it"
cleft "it"
referential "it"

3) Search for "it was * that" (sort concordance by KEYWORD); which of the following has been used in line 3?
anticipatory "it"
cleft "it"
empty "it"

4) Search for "it was * when" (sort concordance by KEYWORD); which of the following has been used in line 7?
empty "it"
cleft "it"
referential "it"

5) Search for "it was a" (sort concordance by KEYWORD); which of the following has been used in line 2?
empty "it"
cleft "it"
referential "it"

6) Search for "it were" in the corpus; how many hits do you get?
2
between 2 and 10
more than 300

7) Search for "it were *rd", how do you explain the fact that "it were" has been used?
the subjunctive is used in hypothetical situations
lack of concord between S and V informal speech
concord between S and V in informal speech

8) Search for "it is * to" in the corpus; in line 6, which of the following functions as the real subject of the sentence?
"absurd to describe our state of mind in these terms"
"to describe our state of mind in these terms"
"it"