# which relative pronoun is correct?



## bamboo13

You can borrow as many books as you like, provided you show them to ..................is at the desk
A.Whoever B.who  C.whom   D.which
I think we need a subject in the blank but the preposition "to" only stands before "whom or which".  Give me the answer and explanation.Thank you very much!


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## gramman

_Whoever_ is correct because it is the subject of _is_.

>>the preposition "to" only stands before "whom or which"

Apparently not. It seems to depend on other factors.


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## bamboo13

Thank you very much gramman!


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## Parla

The object of the preposition "to" is _not_ the very next word, Bamboo. It's all the words that follow ("whoever is at the desk"), which constitute a clause. Within that clause, _whoever_ is the right word; it's the subject of the verb _is_.


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## bamboo13

can I use "Who" instead of "whoever"? why should  we use only "whoever" ?


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## gramman

I'm going to guess that _whoever_ is the correct choice because it is an indefinite relative pronoun. We want that because we don't know (or at least aren't saying) who is at the desk. _Who_ is a definite relative pronoun.


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## RM1(SS)

You can say "show them to the person who is at the desk," but not "show them to who is at the desk."


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## Edinburgher

It's unfortunate that "whomever" is not offered as an option.  That would have been the correct answer.  I feel that "whoever" is very much second-best.


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## bamboo13

Thanks all of you. I think gramman's explanation is very logical.


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## JulianStuart

Edinburgher said:


> It's unfortunate that "whomever" is not offered as an option.  That would have been the correct answer.  I feel that "whoever" is very much second-best.


No - the word for the blank is the subject of the verb "is" in that clause.  Whomever is an object form and would be incorrect. Whoever is at the desk will be the recipient of the action.  The noun clause itself is an object (of the preposition "to") but it contains a subject, verb and complement.


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## Procol

Would agree with Edinburgher... The most grammatically correct response would be "to whomever is at the desk". I can't imagine anyone actually saying it, as we'd probably say "to the person at the desk".


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## JulianStuart

Procol said:


> Would agree with Edinburgher... The most grammatically correct response would be "to whomever is at the desk". I can't imagine anyone actually saying it, as we'd probably say "to the person at the desk".


The only way "whomever" would be correct is if there was no "is at the desk" following it.  Then it would be the simple object of "to".  However, it is the subject of the clause and needs to be the "who" form and not the "whom" form of the pronoun.


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## Procol

Sorry to disagree, but the "is at the desk" is irrelevant. The relevant word is "to", calling for the old dative (or prepositional) case, "whom", and not "who".


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## gramman

> _"I’ll give a bonus point to       whoever can tell me what page we’re on," said the frustrated French       teacher.
> 
> _Many people, even many educated people, would say _whomever_       here, thinking (incorrectly) that the indefinite relative pronoun is the       object of the preposition _to_. It isn’t. The unexpressed       antecedent _anyone_ is the object of the preposition; _whoever_       is the subject of the relative clause. — Adjective (Relative) Clauses, on german-latin-english.com


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## JulianStuart

So you would also say that  "Whomever is at the desk will be able to call a taxi for you" is correct?


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## Procol

Still not convinced but point taken (and thanks for the "even many educated people"! )


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## Procol

JulianStuart said:


> So you would also say that  "Whomever is at the desk will be able to call a taxi for you" is correct?


No, I would say "Whoever is at the desk will be able to call a taxi for you". I would also say, seemingly incorrectly, "you can give this to whomever you choose".


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## gramman

Pfft, I'm learning this as I go along. I hope I actually remember some of it.  You're not the first member whose opinion I've come to respect that has taken your position in this thread.

_cross-posted_


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## gramman

>>I would also say, seemingly incorrectly, "you can give this to whomever you choose".

I believe that _is_ correct.





> _They plan to give the money to whomever       they find in the shelter._
> 
> This time _whomever_ is correct because       it is the direct object in its own clause. The object of the preposition _to_       is the unexpressed antecedent _anyone_.


Wanna go for a hat trick?


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## JulianStuart

Procol said:


> No, I would say "Whoever is at the desk will be able to call a taxi for you". I would also say, seemingly incorrectly, "you can give this to whomever you choose".


It's OK in the latter - the subject of _that_ clause is "you".  You can give this to any person whom you choose.  The "who" is an object in this example so we use the "whom" version.  In the desk example above the "who" is the subject.  The self-contained clause replaces a noun but it still requires a subject verb and complement.


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## Procol

Interesting discussion, still only 7.30 am here and the brain already ticking over nicely. The white flag is up.


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## sumelic

I agree with Julian Stuart-- the relative pronoun is declined for its role in the relative clause, even if it is preceded by a "to". This is the same as with other pronouns.

"I gave it to her" vs. "I gave it to she who must not be named". (not "to her who must not be named)
"I can give this to whomever" vs. "I will give this to whoever wants it" vs "I can give this to whomever I want (to give it to)"


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo.

Whoever it is, I don't want to speak to them/him
"I'll take whoever wants to go"

Hence: " ... provided you show them to _whoever_ is at the desk".

GS

But, e.g. " ... provided you show them to _whomever_ you'll see at the desk"


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## bennymix

"to whoever is at the desk" is correct, in my opinion, for reasons Julian and others have given.

Procol said
_//No, I would say "Whoever is at the desk will be able to call a taxi for  you". I would also say, seemingly incorrectly, "you can give this to  whomever you choose".                 _//

The first sentence is correct, but "You can give this to whomever you choose." is also correct.  "Whomever" is the OBJECT of choose.

In the OP's sentence, "___ is at the desk" requires a subject, as others have said.

The rule, in English, I might add, is the one makes the choice at the LOWEST (innermost) clausal level.  If I recall correctly, this in not the case in some other languages, e.g. German, where the crucial (determining) clause is at at higher level:  "Give it to ___"   Perhaps this explains Edinburgher's choice.


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## Procol

More and more interesting. I am basing my hypothesis on three languages I have learnt in life : Latin, German and Russian. None of these can accept the nominative after a preposition, it is the dative, genitive or, in Russian, the prepositional case. That does not stop the noun that follows from being the subject of the next clause, i.e. in this case "who(m)ever is at the desk". Sorry to be such a bonehead but I really don't get it.


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## Edinburgher

bennymix said:


> The rule, in English, I might add, is the one makes the choice at the LOWEST (innermost) clausal level.  If I recall correctly, this in not the case in some other languages, e.g. German, where the crucial (determining) clause is at at higher level:  "Give it to ___"   Perhaps this explains Edinburgher's choice.


 If that is indeed the rule, of which I'm not yet entirely convinced, then my German background would indeed explain my choice, because you're right about that not being the case in German (nor, according to Procol, in Russian).

I'd be interested in Julian's and bennymix's views on the example in #22, where sumelic asserts that "I gave it to *she* who must not be named" should prevail over  "I gave it to *her* who must not be named".  This is in my view totally wrong (even if what was said about _whoever_ is right), because here the subject of the defining clause is _who_, not _she_, nor _she who_.  The problem in the case of who(m)ever only arises because there is no convenient doubling of the pronoun where one can be in the dative to connect with the preposition, and the other can be in the nominative to function as subject of the clause.

There is also the famous bit from the Bible (John 8:7): _Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone._  This also sometimes appears as  _Let he who..._, but that is a misquote.  See www.bibleserver.com.
The King James Version cunningly moves the clause forward and doubles the pronoun (so that it can use both nominative and dative):  _He that is without sin ..., let him first cast..._
The English Standard Version unabashedly has _Let him who is without..._
The New International Version also cunningly avoids the issue with _Let any one of you who is without sin be the first..._
There is also the New International Readers Version which also skirts around the issue: _Has any one of you not sinned? Then you be the first..._


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## Procol

I agree with more or less everything said by Edinburgher, except the alleged misquote (Let he who...). The expression "let he who is without sin" might be correct (cf. in French "que celui qui est..."), "let" used in an original meaning of "may", rather than the more modern meaning of "leave" or "allow to". The debate continues...


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## RM1(SS)

Parla said:


> The object of the preposition "to" is _not_ the very next word, Bamboo. It's all the words that follow ("whoever is at the desk"), which constitute a clause. Within that clause, _whoever_ is the right word; it's the subject of the verb _is_.


This is correct - it's the entire phrase "whoever is at the desk" that's the object of the preposition _to_, and _whoever_ is the subject of that phrase.


sumelic said:


> "I gave it to her" vs. "I gave it to she who must not be named". (not "to her who must not be named)


I agree with Edinburgher that _her_ is correct here; it is the object of _to_, while _who_ is the subject of the following phrase.


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## RM1(SS)

Procol said:


> More and more interesting. I am basing my hypothesis on three languages I have learnt in life : Latin, German and Russian. None of these can accept the nominative after a preposition, it is the dative, genitive or, in Russian, the prepositional case. That does not stop the noun that follows from being the subject of the next clause, i.e. in this case "who(m)ever is at the desk". Sorry to be such a bonehead but I really don't get it.


This is the only difference you've noticed between English grammar and Latin, German or Russian grammar?


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## Procol

Yes, of course, I'm a bonehead


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## gramman

>>I'm a bonehead

Worse, after offering a surrender in post #21, you reentered the debate.  And this after I had prepared the documents for a signature! Don't expect any quarter this time.


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## Procol

Keeping the thread alive and kicking, I've been asking around, in particular with a friend who is professor of English at Newcastle (UK), and his answer was: "I personally would go for 'whomsoever' but that is rather pedantic. Common usage would be 'whoever'." Any reaction (without the sarcasm please RM1(SS)) ???


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## Procol

"Worse, after offering a surrender in post #21, you reentered the debate.  And this after I had prepared the documents for a signature! Don't expect any quarter this time."

None expected, none given (and it wasn't unconditional)


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## JulianStuart

Edinburgher said:


> I'd be interested in Julian's and bennymix's views on the example in #22, where sumelic asserts that "I gave it to *she* who must not be named" should prevail over  "I gave it to *her* who must not be named".  This is in my view totally wrong (even if what was said about _whoever_ is right), because here the subject of the defining clause is _who_, not _she_, nor _she who_.  The problem in the case of who(m)ever only arises because there is no convenient doubling of the pronoun where one can be in the dative to connect with the preposition, and the other can be in the nominative to function as subject of the clause.
> 
> There is also the famous bit from the Bible (John 8:7): _Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone._  This also sometimes appears as  _Let he who..._, but that is a misquote.  See www.bibleserver.com.
> _.._


I gave it to her.  When we add an adjectival clause to expand on who that person is, we must use _who_ as the _subject_ of that clause, even though the _her_ that the clause modifies is the object of a preposition. If not, the clause will have no subject.  On this I agree with Edinburgher.  (I am familiar with the Rumpole (wiki) epithet for his wife as "she who must be obeyed" and have some sympathy for someone who feels this is an immutable "epithet that should not be changed")  

The same structure is found in the "Let him cast the first stone".  There is a "semantic" unit of "he who is without sin" that some apparently do not wish to alter from a grammar perspective, but "him who is without sin" still carries the same meaning.


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## Forero

bamboo13 said:


> You can borrow as many books as you like, provided you show them to ..................is at the desk
> A.Whoever B.who  C.whom   D.which
> I think we need a subject in the blank but the preposition "to" only stands before "whom or which".  Give me the answer and explanation.Thank you very much!



A is fine because it is the subject of _is_.
B is grammatical, but unidiomatic since we would normally say "the person who" or just "the person" except in an indirect question (e.g. "I don't know who is at the desk.").
C is ungrammatical because the object of _to_ is the whole relative clause, and the blank requires a subject for the verb _is_.
D may be grammatical, but it is even less idiomatic than B. We would normally say "the person who" or just "the person" except in an indirect question such as "I don't know which is at the desk (the librarian or a librarian's assistant)." [_Whichever_ might work, but it is not one of the choices.]
("I gave it to *her* who must not be named" is correct, but not "I gave it to her *whom* must not be named." A relative pronoun acts as a subordinator in the whole sentence, allowing the whole clause to be used as a modifier, a direct object, etc., but it acts as a pronoun in its own clause. Its case is a property of its function as a pronoun, which function always applies in its own clause.)


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## Thomas Tompion

Why isn't it _I gave it to she who must not be named_, Forero?

Isn't _she who must not be named_ the whole clause which is the object of _to_?

You say _I gave it to whom is at the desk is wrong _by what seems to me to be the same token.  I'd agree with that, but I'd not fault_ I gave it to she who must not be named_.

I'm seeking enlightenment, not saying that you are wrong.

ps. Here are some examples from the corpuses of similar forms:

 ‘I need hardly tell you,’ he continued in his dry voice, ‘what a blow you dealt to  she who cared so much for your welfare. _Ruth Appleby._ Rhodes, Elvi.
Good things come to he who waits. _Moonstruck. _ Edward M. Lerner.
Enraptured by that vision of a young woman in a yellow dress kneeling  with the head of that sickly dolphin in her lap by the side of the road  thick with riot noise and human greed and anger, Uncle McKenzie made his  way through the protestors to she who would shortly become, and remain long after her death decades later, the woman of all his dreams. _Their Story._  Thomas Glave.


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## RM1(SS)

I think it should be _I gave it to *her* who must not be named_ - _her_ is the object of the preposition _to_, while _who_ is the subject of the phrase _who must not be named_, which is a thingamajig*** describing or adding further information about _her_.

This being the case, I would of course say that all of your examples are incorrect.


* Apposition?  One of those technical terms....


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## Forero

Thomas Tompion said:


> Why isn't it _I gave it to she who must not be named_, Forero?
> 
> Isn't _she who must not be named_ the whole clause which is the object of _to_?
> 
> You say _I gave it to whom is at the desk is wrong _by what seems to me to be the same token.  I'd agree with that, but I'd not fault_ I gave it to she who must not be named_.
> 
> I'm seeking enlightenment, not saying that you are wrong.
> 
> ps. Here are some examples from the corpuses of similar forms:
> 
> ‘I need hardly tell you,’ he continued in his dry voice, ‘what a blow you dealt to  she who cared so much for your welfare. _Ruth Appleby._ Rhodes, Elvi.
> Good things come to he who waits. _Moonstruck. _ Edward M. Lerner.
> Enraptured by that vision of a young woman in a yellow dress kneeling  with the head of that sickly dolphin in her lap by the side of the road  thick with riot noise and human greed and anger, Uncle McKenzie made his  way through the protestors to she who would shortly become, and remain long after her death decades later, the woman of all his dreams. _Their Story._  Thomas Glave.


As I see it, "she/her who must not be named" is not a clause, though it contains one. It is a noun phrase consisting of a pronoun and a relative clause modifying the pronoun. The noun phrase is the object of the preposition _to_, so the pronoun should be in the objective case.

Consider the following examples of nonrestrictive relative clauses:

_I saw her, who must not be named, in the garden with Jimmy._
_I gave her, who must not be named, a present._
_I gave the present to her, who must not be named._

I would not put _she_ in place of _her_ in these sentences, and I don't believe changing a nonrestrictive modifier to an essential one should change the form of what it modifies.


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## gramman

>>B is grammatical

I argue in post #6 that B is _not_ grammatical.


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## Forero

gramman said:


> >>B is grammatical
> 
> I argue in post #6 that B is _not_ grammatical.


I disagree (somewhat) with post #6.

The noun phrase _who is at the desk_ is well formed and can mean either "the person who is at the desk" (definite or indefinite) or "whoever is at the desk" (indefinite), and either of these fits the context, grammatically.

But we usually add something (such as _the person_ or _-ever_) to _who_ clauses as noun phrases, and apparently some educated native English speakers are unfamiliar with bare _who_ clauses as noun phrases.

My opinion is that _who_ would be unusual in the given context, and ambiguous if we need to distinguish definite from indefinite, so _whoever_ is a better choice.


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## gramman

Thanks for that. As my post indicated, I was speculating. To be clear, you're happy with "You can borrow as many books as you like, provided you show them to _who_ is at the desk."

What about:

I'm here to help _who_ I can.

We will pursue _who_ is responsible.

Do you see these as grammatical but unusual or ambiguous?


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## Parla

> I'm here to help _who_ I can.
> We will pursue _who_ is responsible.



I see neither as grammatical. In the first sentence, "who" should be _whomever_. In the second, "who" should be _whoever._


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## Giorgio Spizzi

In the first, _whomever_ is the object of both "help" and "can (help)". Fair enough.
In the second, _whoever_ is the object of pursue and the subject of "is responsible". And this is a little less fair.

English doesn't seem to have a word that can at the same time fulfill the functions of Subject *and* Object.

That's is why I suspect that modern English uses *whoever* (whatever the syntactic function of the pronoun).

GS


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## gramman

Interesting. 

Yeah, forget about that first one.


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## Forero

gramman said:


> Thanks for that. As my post indicated, I was speculating. To be clear, you're happy with "You can borrow as many books as you like, provided you show them to _who_ is at the desk."
> 
> What about:
> 
> I'm here to help _who_ I can.
> 
> We will pursue _who_ is responsible.
> 
> Do you see these as grammatical but unusual or ambiguous?


Yes. Grammatically speaking, _whoever_ is related to _who_ in the same way that _whatever_ is related to _what_. We can use _what_ to mean "whatever" (e.g. "What goes up must come down" = "Whatever goes up must come down"), and we can (though we usually don't) use _who_ to mean "whoever" (e.g. "Who laughs last, laughs best" =  "Whoever laughs last, laughs best"). I know, we usually say "he who laughs", "she who laughs", "the person who laughs", etc., but "who laughs last" is a valid noun phrase in English.

In fact, I would not bat an eye if I heard someone say "I'm here to help who(m) I can." (Very good example, Gramman) The ambiguity here (particular people I can help vs. anyone at all that I can help) is not terribly important, and remains even if we say "I'm here to help the people I can." (Does "the people" here mean "the particular people that" or "any people whatever that"?)


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