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People can die after an earthquake from lack of food, water, and medical supplies.

If I change this sentence,

It is from lack of food, water and medical supplies that people can die after an earthquake.

Can I use "prepositional phrase" after "it is"? Is the sentence grammatical?

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    At a minimum it is awkward and stiff and overly formal. It sounds like something a pretentious but not very well educated butler would say, and feels like it is trying to observe some non-existent fake grammatical rule. A better construction would be "Lack of food, water and medical supplies can kill people after an earthquake" or "can cause the deaths of people after an earthquake." There is really no reason to add the "it is" in order to invert the sentence.
    – ohwilleke
    Jan 31, 2017 at 5:04

1 Answer 1

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From the standpoint of grammar, there is nothing wrong with from a lack of food, water and medical supplies coming after the "empty" subject it and the verb is.
Placing this Prepositional Phrase before the actual subject that people can die after an earthquake does emphasize a lack.
As far as grammar goes, there is no issue.
As to style, the first sentence does read smoother than the second. Style would be an issue for the author to resolve.

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