Grammatical pattern: it + VERB + that + CLAUSE

Certain verbs are used to comment on things that happen (for example, to remark on their actuality or likelihood, their importance, their random or coincidental nature, the logic of their occurrence), and certain of these verbs tend to use “it” as their grammatical subject and to be followed by a THAT-clause, e.g., “It matters that we signed the document on Friday and not Saturday,” “It appears that they made a mistake.”  In sentences such as these, with these particular verbs (listed below), the word “it” is used as the grammatical subject of the sentence, but the clause introduced by “that” is the true notional subject.  With some of the verbs that follow this pattern, the clause beginning with “that” can be placed in the subject position and the “it” can be dispensed with, as in “That we signed the document on Friday and not Saturday matters.”  Doing this makes for a fairly formal sentence and sometimes one that feels unbalanced, as this sentence might feel with its long subject and short, one-word predicate (“matters”).   But, for most of these verbs, the simple juxtaposition does not work.  For example, we cannot say *“That we were there at the same time chanced”  or *“That I was not alone seemed.”  For these verbs, (“appear,” “chance,” “emerge,” “follow,” “happen, “seem,” “transpire”), it is necessary to follow the pattern described here beginning with “it” or to change the wording of the sentence substantially, as in “That they made a mistake appears to be the case.”

Verbs that follow the pattern  [it  +  VERB  +  that  +  CLAUSE]

appear, chance, emerge, follow, happen, help, seem, transpire

Additional examples of the pattern [it  +  VERB  +  that  +  CLAUSE]

It seems that they would rather not get involved in this matter.

It transpired that new evidence was uncovered that would greatly affect the case.

He’s very upset, but it helps that he knows you support him.

It follows that the sum of these two numbers is one hundred.

It happens that I agree with her.

It appears that we were both wrong.

It chanced that it had rained that morning.