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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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 Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:37 am Post subject: "Whose" = "of which" = "of whom&quo |
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| moonraven wrote: |
| Personally, I would never use "whose" to refer to something inanimate. I would use "of which". |
I used to follow this same rule rather strictly, if only for myself, but, after being exposed to the French word, "dont", and the German word, "wessen" and using them to get Brownie points in practice French and German essays for mock GCE "A"-level examinations (and it worked!), I started using "whose" rather than "of which" in English to refer to inanimate objects, too.
From my own viewpoint, altered by exposure to two foreign languages, the use of "whose" for both inanimate and animate objects has become "natural" inasmuch as I don't sit down and think about whether "of which" should be used instead of "whose" where circumstances require it. However, that does not mean to say that I have abandoned "of which" altogether.
"Of whom", of course, does not necessarily mean the same as "of which" for an animate object, as in "This is the man, of whom it is said that ...." You obviously can't use "whose" here! |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 6:13 am Post subject: |
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| If it was good enough for Shakespeare, it's good enough for me. |
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Chasgul
Joined: 04 May 2005
Posts: 168
Location: BG
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| Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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Celui c'est l'homme, duquel on dit...
Celui c'est l'homme, dont on dit...
My French is a little rusty but the first one sounds correct to me.
Either way, 'of whom' is not a genetive construction in this instance but somewhere in the murky waters of Ablatives and Datives.
Please correct me as necessary. |
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moonraven
Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094
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| Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 2:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Ablative case refers to objects of prepositions, and dative case to indirect objects. |
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Ben Round de Bloc
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Posts: 1946
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 12:56 pm Post subject: Whose |
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| moonraven wrote: |
| Personally, I would never use "whose" to refer to something inanimate. |
I wouldn't either. Yet, I was reading a novel not all that long ago whose  author used the word "whose" with inanimate objects several times. There were things like "the house whose front door was standing open" and "a car whose driver was drunk." Using "whose" with inanimate objects stood out as strange to me. It seemed non-standard. Then I thought about how we would say it "back home" in the part of the country where I come from, and I realized most people I know from there would also use a non-standard form, a word that doesn't even exist in standard English to my knowledge: "thats" as in "the house thats front door was standing open" and "a car thats driver was drunk."  |
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Chasgul
Joined: 04 May 2005
Posts: 168
Location: BG
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| Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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Rufst mir an: am I an indirect object?
Ablative absolute.
Genitive absolute.
Beware the exception.
Unless 'of whom' is actually 'of' + accusative?!
If 'whom' is the object of 'of' then it follows that it is the object of a preposition and is therefore, by moonraven's definition, Ablative. |
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moonraven
Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094
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| Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 2:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Moonraven's view of the world, in which grammar is included, has never been THAT convoluted. |
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31
Joined: 21 Jan 2005
Posts: 1797
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| Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Grammarian. There is not much you haven`t done. |
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Chasgul
Joined: 04 May 2005
Posts: 168
Location: BG
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| Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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Which is worse the specialist Grammarian or the generalist Pedant?
And if that is convoluted then you obviously don't use much legalese.  |
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moonraven
Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 7:44 am Post subject: |
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| Your statement/question is missing its commas. Nothing to do with legalese. Haven't used legalese since a brief stint as a paralegal many moons ago. |
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31
Joined: 21 Jan 2005
Posts: 1797
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 11:26 am Post subject: |
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| Paralegal. There is not much you haven`t done. |
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