philo2009
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2009
- Member Type
- Academic
- Native Language
- British English
- Home Country
- UK
- Current Location
- Japan
I was slightly concerned to note recently, with regard to a now closed thread, that no clear rebuttal or correction was made by any moderator to the following answer concerning the choice between
Tell it to whoever lost the book.
and
Tell it to whomever lost the book. :
But the computer, as I mentioned, parses linearly, which is its major downfall because Human languages are not linear. The correct sentence is,
Tell it to whomever lost the book.
I should therefore like to make clear here and now to any learners struggling with this problem that the form of the pronoun in a concessive relative clause in English is governed entirely by its function within that clause. Here it stands as subject of the verb 'lost' and, as such, must be nominative in form, thus 'whoever', NOT 'whomever'.
Cf. a genuine case for the objective form, e.g.
You may give it to whomever you choose.
where 'whomever' functions as the object of 'choose'.
It would appear that the poster of the above-cited twaddle requires a few basic lessons in sentence-parsing himself!
Tell it to whoever lost the book.
and
Tell it to whomever lost the book. :
But the computer, as I mentioned, parses linearly, which is its major downfall because Human languages are not linear. The correct sentence is,
Tell it to whomever lost the book.
I should therefore like to make clear here and now to any learners struggling with this problem that the form of the pronoun in a concessive relative clause in English is governed entirely by its function within that clause. Here it stands as subject of the verb 'lost' and, as such, must be nominative in form, thus 'whoever', NOT 'whomever'.
Cf. a genuine case for the objective form, e.g.
You may give it to whomever you choose.
where 'whomever' functions as the object of 'choose'.
It would appear that the poster of the above-cited twaddle requires a few basic lessons in sentence-parsing himself!
