Relative pronouns play an essential role to introduce relative clauses, in which they function as subjects or objects of verbs, and connect sentences (Dietrich, 1994). They are taught to English learners at an early stage. It is, however, surprisingly intriguing that two particular relative pronouns, who and whom, confuse many of the students in Hong Kong. Young pupils often mix the usages of the two relative pronouns or even use ‘who’ as a substitute for ‘whom’ in all circumstances. This article attempts to clarify the different grammatical usages of ‘who’ and ‘whom’ by comparing views of books and articles.
“A relative pronoun is a pronoun that relates to a preceding noun or pronoun called [antecedent] (Huang, 2001)” and connects main clauses and relative clauses, which are dependent clauses, acting as conjunctions as they join sentences together (Sinclair et al., 2005). ‘Who’ and “whom’ are relative pronouns, particularly referring to persons. They are, however, used with animals when personalised, in the forms of ‘he’ or ‘she’ (Huang, 2001).
‘Who’ is the sole relative pronoun that can refer to the nominative, a person or persons, of a relative clause. In this example sentence,
‘Anna who lives in Hong Kong is an American’,
the relative pronoun, ‘who’, refers to Anna, the subject of the sentence. Both Sinclair et al. (2005) and Murphy (2015) have similar ideas on this subject. ‘Who’ must not be omitted when it is the subject of the relative clause (Murphy, 2015). It is ungrammatical to say,
‘*Anna lives in Hong Kong is an American’.
It is, however, possible to omit the relative pronoun, ‘who’, only in exceptional circumstances. It leads to another role of ‘who’, which is to refer to the accusative of a relative clause. ‘Who’ can sometimes be used to refer to the object of the verb (Murphy, 2015). For example, in the following sentence,
‘the boy who I saw yesterday lives next to me’,
the boy is the receiver of the action, and thus, he is the direct object of the verb, ‘saw’. In this case, the relative pronoun, ‘who’, can be omitted. It is grammatical to say,
‘the boy I saw yesterday lives next to me’.
‘Who’, moreover, when separated from the preposition, can be used as the object of a preposition, notwithstanding that some speakers deem that not as correct as using ‘whom’ in that case (Sinclair et al., 2005), and can be left out. For example, it is acceptable to either say,
‘the girl who I have given the cake to is not feeling well’ or
‘the girl I have given the cake to is not feeling well’.
At the very beginning of this essay, it has been mentioned that the alternation between ‘who’ and ‘whom’ in relative clauses is casual for some speakers, implicating that this sort of usage, to a certain extent, is incorrect. It is, however, tenable in the above situations. Language, as a tool of communication, is continuously transforming because of the influences from different cultures and people’s ever-changing habits, and that is inevitable. The English language is not an exception. Understandably, such usage is more and more popular amongst English communities as it is more comfortable and convenient to use. The English language in the present is considerably different from that of the Elizabethan era. There should not be anything to do with right or wrong. Still, understanding such disappearing words or usages is valuable as, for instance, the usage of ‘whom’ helps us have a better understanding of distinguishing the object from a sentence. The more detailed usage of ‘whom’ will be discussed below.
‘Whom’ is used when referring to the object of the verb in a relative clause (Murphy, 2015). For example, in the sentence,
‘John is a person whom people like’,
John is the accusative which receives the action, ‘like’. “‘Whom’ is almost always used when the object of a preposition comes immediately after the preposition (Sinclair et al., 2005, 39).” For example,
‘I dislike the slobs with whom I work’.
Considering the formality, it is not always wrong to use ‘who’ to replace ‘whom’. It is more usual to use ‘who’ or ‘that’ or omit the ‘whom’ in informal situations (Murphy, 2015). For example, it is more natural to say that
‘John is a person who/that people like’ or ‘John is a person people like’ and
‘I dislike the slobs who/that I work with’ or ‘I dislike the slobs I work with’
in colloquialism.
When examining the two grammar usage books, English Grammar in Use: A Self-study Reference and Practice Book for Intermediate learners of English (2015) and Collins Cobuild English Grammar (2005), mainly used in this essay, it can be discovered that the introduction to and explanation of the usages of ‘who’ and ‘whom’ are highly similar. It is because the grammar of a language ought to be universally acknowledged. Albeit similar, their approaches and some contents are not identical. Murphy (2015) focuses more on practicality, formality, and colloquialism, whereas Sinclair et al. (2005) focus more on the general acceptance and correctness of such usages. The former one targets intermediate learners and allows his readers to utilise ‘who’ and ‘whom’ appropriately in various circumstances. The latter has a more academic focus, and it discusses the divergent opinions of people. Both have their redeeming features despite the shared characteristic, being brief. None has mentioned the historical background and transformation of the usages or given support to why specific usage is considered as incorrect or formal. More information about those would help readers better use ‘who’ and ‘whom’. Examples provided in both books, nevertheless, should suffice for a basic understanding of the topic.
This article briefly introduces the usages of ‘who’ and ‘whom’, offering slightly more comprehensive information on the topic. It can be concluded that the most significant difference between ‘who’ and ‘whom’ is that they refer to different syntactic components, subject and object, most of the time, in spite of ongoing changes of uses. However the uses of ‘who’ and ‘whom’ evolve, their fundamental functions should remain. The future uses are being looked forward to.
References
Dietrich, Heidrun. (1994). Relative Clauses with Relative Pronouns. Munich: GRIN Verlag.
Huang, Li-jin. (2011). On Similarities and Differences between Relative Pronouns in Relative Clauses. Overseas English, (12), 342–343.
Murphy, Raymond. (2015). English Grammar in Use: A Self-study Reference and Practice Book for Intermediate learners of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sinclair, J., Clari, M., Airlie, M. & Ogden, S. (eds.). (2005). Collins Cobuild English Grammar. Glasgow: HarperCollins Publishers.
