- Whom did you see?
The pronoun whom is the object of the verb see, hence the object form should be used. However, the use of the subject form who instead of whom is coming into such general use today that some grammarians accept it as a permissible usage. The will of the people influences language, as it does all other human institutions, and gradually creates new rules.
Write three sentences, using who, which and what as interrogative pronouns.
An interrogative pronoun is a pronoun used to ask a question.
RELATIVE PRONOUNS
232. There is one other class of pronouns which plays a great part in our speech and is a wonderful help to us. For example, suppose I want to tell you several things about this book. I say: I am reading this book. It interests me greatly. Now it would be a great advantage to me if I could put these two sentences together, and we have for this use a pronoun which makes it possible for us to combine these sentences, and so I say:
- The book which I am reading interests me greatly.
Thus I am able to unite two short sentences into a long sentence, which conveys my meaning better than the two short sentences and gives a smoother bit of reading. We have four pronouns which we use in this way, who, which, that and what and they are called relative pronouns because they refer or relate to some noun in the sentence and they also serve to connect two statements.
233. A relative pronoun is a pronoun that relates to an antecedent and at the same time connects two statements.
A relative pronoun always relates to its antecedent and at the same time connects the statement that it introduces with the one that contains the antecedent to which it relates, as in the sentence above, The book which I am reading, interests me greatly. Which is the relative pronoun; first, because it relates to the antecedent, book; and second, because it connects the statement, I am reading, with the rest of the sentence. Notice these sentences also: