Gradually, h also came to be lost in accented positions, although hit persisted in socially prestigious speech well into the Elizabethan period. Early in the history of English, speakers began to drop the h from hit, particularly in unaccented positions, as in I saw it yesterday. In fact, hit is the original form of the third person singular neuter pronoun and thus can be traced to the beginnings of the Old English period (c. In some American vernacular dialects, particularly in the South (including the Appalachian and Ozark Mountains), speakers may pronounce it as hit in stressed positions, especially at the beginning of a sentence, as in Hit's cold out here! This pronunciation is called a relic dialect feature because it represents the retention of an older English form.Although most British and American varieties no longer have this historical feature, it still occurs in some Southern-based dialects and in African American Vernacular English.
Existential it is hardly a recent innovation-it appears in Middle English in Elizabethan English, as in Marlowe's Edward II: "Cousin, it is no dealing with him now" and in modern American literature as well. It is used instead of Standard English there when there functions as a so-called existential-that is, when there indicates the mere existence of something rather than a physical location, as in It was nothing I could do. Our Living Language "I told Anse it likely won't be no need." This quotation from William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying demonstrates a use of it that occurs in some vernacular varieties of American speech.
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