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What does it refer to in the sentence

It wasn't me.

For example in response to the question

Who stole the cookies?

I see "it" as referring to the person who stole the cookies, but it doesn't sound right to say "he wasn't me" or "she wasn't me".

Can anyone clear this up for me

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  • I'd say that the interpretation of "it" is given by the preceding clause. "Who stole the cookies?" ~ "It was x who stole the cookies" ~ "I'm not x".
    – BillJ
    Commented Dec 30, 2020 at 19:05
  • Similarly, "Someone spoke to me. It was the girl I saw earlier."
    – Weather Vane
    Commented Dec 30, 2020 at 19:18
  • It does not refer in this construction. It is an invariable dummy pronoun.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Dec 30, 2020 at 23:26

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In this case, "it" refers to a person. Usually in English we refer to people as "he" or "she", but we use "it" when referring back to a person just mentioned in a sentence using a form of "to be". Like, "Who put this on my desk?" "It was Bob." Or, "Someone stole my coffee cup!" "Yes, it was Sally." You might think that it would be more consistent to say, "He was Bob" and "She was Sally". But we don't.

"It" can also refer back to some event just described. Like, "What caused XYZ Corporation to go bankrupt?" "It was bad management." Here "it" is referring to "the event that caused the company to go bankrupt".

Sometimes "it" is used as a kind of dummy placeholder. Like, "It is raining today." What is raining? Well, we're not really thinking of some THING that is raining. We're just saying that that's what's happening.

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  • "Bobby is it you?, asked Julie after hearing a loud noise in the kitchen" is another example. I think that it's more correct to say that 'it' is a placeholder, than that it refers to a person. We don't know yet if who or what made the noise is Bobby, Mary, a cat, the wind or Michael Myers.
    – Grand Torini
    Commented Dec 31, 2020 at 0:11
  • @GrandTorini Plausible. Maybe my "unknown person" and "some event" are really the same case. I didn't base my answer on anything I read in a grammar book but rather on my interpretation with experience speaking the language for 60 years. Grammar experts may well have "cleaner" definitions.
    – Jay
    Commented Dec 31, 2020 at 4:47
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    @GrandTorini BTW your answer reminds me ... In the past year I've gone from having 4 people living in my house to just me. A few days ago I was downstairs and I heard some floorboards creaking upstairs, and I said to myself, "My daughter must be walking around up there." Then I realized she no longer lived here. So, I concluded, it must be either a burglar or a ghost. That is, "it" in this case could be a person, a ghost, or something truly boring like changing temperatures.
    – Jay
    Commented Dec 31, 2020 at 4:50
  • @GrandTorini I think it refers to any entity or possible cause of the action. So in your example the "it" refers to whatever the cause of the noise is. And in my example, "it" is an unknown person as it is in response to the question "who xxx?" which means the answer is expected to be a person
    – Shay Boual
    Commented Jan 1, 2021 at 14:58
  • @ShayBoual I agree, I was thinking in general terms. I believe that "it" is a just a neutral placeholder that can be anything, he/ she/ it. That can also apply to your example, e.g. "Who stole the cookies?" "It wasn't me, it was the cat!" ...
    – Grand Torini
    Commented Jan 1, 2021 at 19:03

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