Can noun be nominal part of predicate with dummy formal subject "it"?

Question

As I know any adjectives Can be in function of nominal part of predicate with dummy "it". Can noun be used as nominal part of predicate in sentence with dummy subject "it" when expressing environment or emotional attitude? if yes then any noun can be used this way or what tipe of nouns can be used so? I came across sentence like Eg: "it's a shame you do that". It's obvious that "a shame" is nominal part but can I arbitrarily pick up some nouns for describing situation (Eg "It's a problem that you do that! ") or there is some list of allowed well known nouns? Like "a pity, a shame" and so on

Answer 1

There are only some nouns that can use the structure [ "it's a" + noun + "that" + clause ], where "that" isn't a relative pronoun. You have found some of these nouns, like "shame" and "problem".

But it clearly doesn't work with all nouns:

It's a bowl that it holds food.

Your example sentence, "It's a shame that you do that", looks like this reworded:

The fact that you do that is a shame.

Based on that, we can see that the type of nouns that can use this structure describe abstract situations or concepts. These include "revelation", "tragedy", "catastrophe", "surprise", "nuisance", "convenience" and so on.