INDEFINITE RELATIVES.
List and examples.
121. INDEFINITE RELATIVES are, by meaning and use, not as direct as the simple relatives.
They are whoever, whichever, whatever, whatsoever; less common are whoso, whosoever, whichsoever, whatsoever. The simple relatives who, which, and what may also be used as indefinite relatives. Examples of indefinite relatives (from Emerson):—
1. Whoever has flattered his friend successfully must at once think himself a knave, and his friend a fool.
2. It is no proof of a man's understanding, to be able to affirm whatever he pleases.
3. They sit in a chair or sprawl with children on the floor, or stand on their head, or what else soever, in a new and original way.
4. Whoso is heroic will always find crises to try his edge.
5. Only itself can inspire whom it will.
6. God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please,—you cannot have both.
7. Do what we can, summer will have its flies.
Meaning and use.
122. The fitness of the term indefinite here cannot be shown better than by examining the following sentences:—
1. There is something so overruling in whatever inspires us with awe, in all things which belong ever so remotely to terror, that nothing else can stand in their presence.—Burke.
2. Death is there associated, not with everything that is most endearing in social and domestic charities, but with whatever is darkest in human nature and in human destiny.—Macaulay.
It is clear that in 1, whatever is equivalent to all things which, and in 2, to everything that; no certain antecedent, no particular thing, being referred to. So with the other indefinites.
What simple relative and what indefinite relative.
123. The above helps us to discriminate between what as a simple and what as an indefinite relative.
As shown in Sec. 120, the simple relative what is equivalent to that which or the thing which,—some particular thing; as shown by the last sentence in Sec. 121, what means anything that, everything that (or everything which). The difference must be seen by the meaning of the sentence, as what hardly ever has an antecedent.
The examples in sentences 5 and 6, Sec. 121, show that who and which have no antecedent expressed, but mean any one whom, either one that, etc.