In an exam paper, the following question confused me:
Is this your mother?
No, it isn’t.
"your mother" is a lady, how can we use "it" here ?
I wonder whether the following two negative answers is correct or not:
No, this isn't .
No, she isn't.
How to use the personal pronoun when I answer"Is this..." ?
The reason here is because the it in the answer is referring to the subject being queried in the question - which is this, which has indeterminate (neutral) gender and is hence an it - not your mother (which has female gender and hence would be she)
Is this your mother?
No it isn't.
Is Hannah your mother?
No she isn't.
Is David your mother?
No he isn't.
If we change the subject of the question to be your mother we can see that this changes the response to use she. And note also that if we expand the response to include a reference both to the subject and to the object of the question, we can see that the pronoun referring to the object takes the gender of the object, and the pronoun referring to the subject of the sentence takes the gender of the subject.
Is your mother bringing the car?
No she isn't.
No she isn't bringing it.
Is your mother bringing Hannah along?
No she isn't.
No she isn't bringing her.
Is your mother bringing her new boyfriend along?
No she isn't.
No she isn't bringing him.
A rule of thumb is to always reply in the same style as the question.
Since the question asks
Is this your mother?
You can reply with:
No, this isn't.
If the question had been:
Is she your mother?
You could reply with:
No, she isn't.
EDIT:
While the above holds for direct face-to-face conversations, there are situations when discussing a person indirectly where it may be appropriate. For example when the phone rings or there is a knock on the door it is appropriate to ask, "Who is it?"
Likewise when looking a photograph it is also customary to ask "Who is that?" or "Who is it?"
And of course in these situations exchanges such as
Is that your mother?
No, it isn't
are very much acceptable.
