Learn English – “It” used with plural nouns

pronounssingular-vs-plural

Maybe it is an interference from my native tongue, but why is it correct to say “It is the locations that make this tournament special”. Since there is the pronoun “it” for singular, and “they” for plural, why don’t we use “they” with a plural noun?

Best Answer

There is nothing wrong with the sentence. The subject is locations, which is plural and which is in accord with the verb.

The use of it as the first word in the sentence is a red herring. This is an example of a cleft sentence; it is not the subject.

Plural:

It is the locations that make the tournament special.
→ The locations [are what] make the tournament special.

Singular:

It is the location that makes the tournament special.
→ The location [is what] makes the tournament special.

From Wikipedia:

In English, a cleft sentence can be constructed as follows:

it + conjugated form of to be + X + subordinate clause

where it is a cleft pronoun and X is usually a noun phrase (although it can also be a prepositional phrase, and in some cases an adjectival or adverbial phrase). The focus is on X, or else on the subordinate clause or some element of it. For example:

      It's Joey (whom) we're looking for.
      It's money that I love.
      It was from John that she heard the news.

Furthermore, one might also describe a cleft sentence as inverted. That is to say, it has its dependent clause in front of the main clause. So, rather than: Example:

      We didn't meet her until we arrived at the hotel.

the cleft would be:

      It wasn't until we arrived at the hotel that (or when) we met her.

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