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Consider the following:

  1. I congratulate him.
  2. He won the race.
  3. I congratulate him who won the race.

I think these are straight-forward. The object of the main clause becomes the subject of the relative clause, so I have switched from accusative him to nominative who.

But what about where a single relative pronoun is used:

  1. I congratulate who(m?)ever won the race.

Should the relative pronoun be considered accusative, as the direct object of "congratulate", or nominative, as the subject of "won", or can the entire relative clause be considered the direct object of "congratulate", leaving "whoever" as the correct choice?

Marcus
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    The duplicate contains the sentence "I saw the man who I think was mad," which is the same construction. – Andrew Leach Feb 17 '22 at 10:36
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    "Whoever" is preferable, but Ssee my answer here link – BillJ Feb 17 '22 at 10:46
  • @AndrewLeach I think this may be different case. Your example is a transposition of "This is the man whom I saw." with changes. My question regards the combining of "the man" and "who" such that it not so easily decomposed as two main clauses. Edit: I see there are a few other duplicates, my title was just poor. – Marcus Feb 17 '22 at 10:51
  • @BillJ Thank you. I take it you would disagree the relative clause itself can be considered a direct object of the main verb? – Marcus Feb 17 '22 at 10:52
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    Actually, "who(m) ever won the race" is not a clause but a noun phrase in a 'fused' relative construction understood as "the person satisfying the description 'x won the race'". – BillJ Feb 17 '22 at 10:58
  • So it is! Thank you. – Marcus Feb 17 '22 at 10:59
  • @AndrewLeach It looks similar, but it is different in an important way that bears specifically upon the OP's question. In "I saw [the man [who I think was mad]]" the object of the verb saw is headed by the noun man and the relative clause occurs as a modifier of this noun within the nominal/noun phrase. There is no way that who there can be construed as the object of saw. ... – Araucaria - Him Feb 17 '22 at 11:46
  • @AndrewLeach In contrast, in the OP's example, "I congratulate [who(m)ever won the race]", the object of the verb congratulate is the NP (more specifically, the used relative clause construction) headed by the word who(m)ever. There is no preceding NP being modified by a relative clause. The contrast is brought out by considering the OP's previous example "I congratulate [him [who won the race]], where the word him clearly heads the object of congratulate. Notice this word disappears/is replaced by who(m)ever in the OP's main example. I think this question deserves reopening! – Araucaria - Him Feb 17 '22 at 11:50
  • I thought my answer here link dealt with the case of the pronoun "who(m)ever". – BillJ Feb 17 '22 at 11:55
  • @AndrewLeach This is indubitably the best question to link it to. And it might also be very useful to readers to merge these questions with useful, but not nearly so accurate/full/nuanced/supported answers with that question: 1 and 2. – Araucaria - Him Feb 17 '22 at 12:12
  • @AndrewLeach I know that would be a lot of work, but it would be really useful for readers and you'd get a superb page of high quality answers! A worthy labour of love :) – Araucaria - Him Feb 17 '22 at 12:13
  • Classically, 'the rule' mandates 'I congratulate whoever won the race' (a person won the race, subjective) BUT 'I congratulate whomever they chose as president' (they chose a person, objective), so the case determined by the function of the 'who/m/ever' in the retrievable sentence, not in 'I know X'. However, modern advice is usually to avoid 'whomever'. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 17 '22 at 12:25
  • @EdwinAshworth Not what the science says ... :) – Araucaria - Him Feb 17 '22 at 12:30
  • @Araucaria There's lies, .... Looking closely at the first 10 recent-ish Google examples (via ngrams) for 'whomever', I find 3 erroneous uses, 3 correct if sounding archaic, and 4 examples discussing proper usage in dated grammars. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 17 '22 at 14:45
  • @EdwinAshworth Well, that confirms what the science says. There's no rule when the free relative is the object of the matrix clause and the -ever pronoun is the subject of the free relative (or vice versa). Your investigation found that the rule you cite works in 50% of cases (in other words it's not a real rule!) – Araucaria - Him Feb 17 '22 at 16:27
  • @Araucaria 'The rule' used with scare quotes and obviously belonging to prescriptivist philosophy cannot be deduced from actual usage studies, only from looking at pre-21st century grammars that addressed the problem. You wish to add the relevant scientific data? – Edwin Ashworth Feb 17 '22 at 19:33
  • A whoever or a whomever clause is not affected by its part in the sentence (e.g. as a direct object). Pick the right pronoun for the clause, then put the clause back in the sentence. *I congratulate whoever won the race* (whoever is the subject in the clause). *I congratulate whomever you selected as winner* (whomever is the object in the clause). – Tinfoil Hat Feb 17 '22 at 21:16
  • @TinfoilHat "who(m)ever you select as leader" is not a clause, though. It's a noun phrase. – Araucaria - Him Feb 18 '22 at 00:09
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. : In my world, whomever you select as leader is called a "nominal relative clause." – Tinfoil Hat Feb 18 '22 at 00:31
  • @TinfoilHat Yes, in traditional grammar, because they involve a structure that is in many ways similar to a relative clause, they were called 'causes' for a long time. The term "nominal relative clause" is a bit of a fudge. It appears to say that they are clauses that are 'nouny'. However, they appear in places that no other clauses and only nouns appear, for example in determiner function. Perhaps more tellingly, whereas clauses functioning as subjects always take singular verb agreement, free relatives/fused relative constructions take singular or plural verb agreement: ... – Araucaria - Him Feb 18 '22 at 01:01
  • @TinfoilHat And this is according to whether they are grammatically singular or plural NPs. Consider: Whichever pens she chooses always work* well" and "Whichever pen she chooses always works well". With what we now know about the grammar there's no doubt they're NPs, not clauses :) – Araucaria - Him Feb 18 '22 at 01:23

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