What's in it for him to talk?

[azz]

a. What's in it for him to talk?

Is that sentence correct?

How can it be parsed?
What does 'it' stand for?

 

[emsr2d2]

Did you write that sentence yourself? If so, what was the purpose and can you explain it in different words? If you didn't write it yourself, you must tell us where you found it (we need the title of the book/piece/website and the name(s) of the author(s). We can't help you until we have that information.

 

[Annabel Lee]

a. What's in it for him to talk?

Is that sentence correct?

How can it be parsed?
What does 'it' stand for?

I'm guessing that Azz heard or saw, not (a) itself, but a sentence grammatically analogous to (a) -- e.g.:

b. What's in it for her to talk?

Let's suppose that "her" refers to Ghislaine Maxwell and "to talk" means "to disclose information to the U.S. Department of Justice concerning the dealings between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump." This is something I've thought about lately. Would the Justice Department reduce Maxwell's prison sentence if she did this? Then something would be "in it for her."

I find (a) and (b) acceptable. I think that "to talk" can be parsed as being in extraposition to "it". Compare: "What's in it for her -- talking to the Justice Department about this?" I think I'd use the version with "is" ('s) if I knew she'd already agreed to talk. Otherwise, in just pondering the possibility of her agreeing to do so, I'd use "What would be in it for her to talk?

 

[azz]

I wrote it myself.

The idea is
What advantage will he gain by talking?
What good will talking do to him?

 

[emsr2d2]

a. What's in it for him to talk?

I'm guessing that Azz heard or saw, not (a) itself, but a sentence grammatically analogous to (a) -- e.g.:

b. What's in it for her to talk?

Why do you guess they didn't see the original sentence? The sole difference is they used "him" and you used "her".

 

[Annabel Lee]

Why do you guess they didn't see the original sentence? The sole difference is they used "him" and you used "her".

Why assume that Azz didn't write the sentence? He didn't quote it. There's nothing about the sentence that suggests that it relates to a particular context. It's a bare-bones sentence that concentrates purely on the grammar of the construction.

 

[Rover_KE]

Azz has been a member long enough to know that we expect members to tell us why they are composing their own sentences.

(Don’t assume that Azz is male.)

 

[emsr2d2]

Why assume that Azz didn't write the sentence? He didn't quote it.

I didn't assume anything. I asked whether it was taken from somewhere else or if they wrote it themselves. They've now answered that question. We require posters to tell us, in post #1, the source of the words they're asking us about. The forum is based in the UK, where there are very strict copyright laws so it's important to ascertain the source.

There's nothing about the sentence that suggests that it relates to a particular context. It's a bare-bones sentence that concentrates purely on the grammar of the construction.

No one suggested a particular context (apart from you). People don't just string words together into a sentence for no reason.

 

[Annabel Lee]

They've now answered that question.

Who are they? Is they Azz?

No one suggested a particular context (apart from you).

Generic examples often belong to types of context. My example fleshes out the type I found implicit in the question.

People don't just string words together into a sentence for no reason.

People do string words together to realize grammatical constructs, such as "What's in it for someone to do something?"

What's in it for Bob to wash Sally's car?

I just strung those words together to form a different example of the same construction. No copyright infringement is involved.

 

[emsr2d2]

Who are they? Is they Azz?

As Rover pointed out in post #7, "don't assume that Azz is male".

Generic examples often belong to types of context. My example fleshes out the type I found implicit in the question.

People do string words together to realize grammatical constructs, such as "What's in it for someone to do something?"

What's in it for Bob to wash Sally's car?

I just strung those words together to form a different example of the same construction. No copyright infringement is involved.

None of that makes any difference to the fact that posters are required to explicitly state whether what they're asking us to look at has been copied from somewhere else or they made it up themselves. If they copied it from elsewhere, they must cite the source.

 

[Annabel Lee]

None of that makes any difference to the fact that posters are required to explicitly state whether what they're asking us to look at has been copied from somewhere else or they made it up themselves.

Understood. But does this apply even to short, generic examples? Consider the following example:

He used to smoke.

If someone asked about that sentence as a case of "used to," would he or she need to specify that it did not come from one of the doubtless thousands of sources that contain that precise sentence? Surely no one would lay copyright claim to such a run-of-the-mill short sentence, which almost any English speaker, native or non, could effortlessly construct.