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Should we have who or whom here?

He's talking about people who run fast. I run fast. I'm who(m) he's talking about.

I understand that "who(m) he's talking about" is a free relative clause and we'd say "I'm the person whom he's talking about" (so I'd guess "whom"). Wikipedia says "Modern guides to English usage say that the relative pronoun should take the case appropriate to the relative clause, not the function performed by that clause within an external clause." I just wanted to double check that that still applies with "to be" and a free relative clause.

Andrew
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1 Answers1

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Yes, "whom" is correct, because it functions as the object of the preposition "about".1 However, I prefer to call this a nominal clause (or content clause, etc.)--though I suppose that's a matter of preference. The fact that the clause performs a function that would normally take the subject case (in your sentence, it functions as a nominal subject complement) doesn't matter; the clause could even function as a subject, for example:

For whom you work is irrelevant. ("Who" is not common here.)

or:

Whom you work for is irrelevant. ("Who" is probably more common here than "whom" and widely considered acceptable.)

Note 1: As you probably know, many people accept "who" even when the pronoun functions as an object.

MarcInManhattan
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  • It’s nearly—but possibly not quite absolutely—impossible to have a prepositional phrase as the clausal subject, but if possible then it is nonetheless still rare and unusual, and yours is not one of those cases. In the back would be better than in the front would be is—perhaps, and arguably—one such case. To be the subject, you need to unravel your ugly pied-piping that has rendered your version ungrammatical: Whom you work for is irrelevant. Now it’s grammatical again because now it’s a noun clause instead of a prepositional phrase, and noun clauses are substantives not modifiers. – tchrist Jul 02 '22 at 23:57
  • @tchrist I'm not construing any prepositional phrase as a subject. In the subordinate clause, "you" is the subject. – MarcInManhattan Jul 03 '22 at 00:09
  • What's the subject of is? That's the problem. The main clause needs to have a subject, and it can't be a prepositional phrase. – tchrist Jul 03 '22 at 00:20
  • @tchrist It's the entire subordinate clause. That was my point, that the pronoun doesn't change (it's still whom) even when the subordinate clause functions as a subject. – MarcInManhattan Jul 03 '22 at 00:24
  • @tchrist Are you saying "For whom you work is irrelevant" is ungrammatical just because of the "ugly pied-piping?" Ugly or not, is pied-piping necessarily ungrammatical? – Zan700 Jul 03 '22 at 02:01
  • The Bell Tolls For Whom? – Zan700 Jul 03 '22 at 02:15
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    @Zan 'Ugly or not, is pied-piping necessarily ungrammatical?' No. But at some point, Orwell's Sixth Rule kicks in and 'unacceptable as outlandish' trumps any considerations of grammaticality. "It's we"??? – Edwin Ashworth Jul 03 '22 at 14:31
  • @EdwinAshworth Is MarcinManhattan's construction (For whom you work is irrelevant.) outlandish? It's I, though? Does that meet the criteria of outlandish? Don't bother with the predicate nominative at all? – Zan700 Jul 03 '22 at 15:59
  • (2) Answered before; no less a linguist than Geoff Pullum has said "If there's a knock at the door, and when you ask "Who is it?" the answer is "It is I", don't let them in." (1) is extremely formal, and rarefied in informal contexts (and perhaps fairly formal ones too). // I'm just making the point that those who consider grammaticality the only (or sometimes even the most important) test of acceptability need to rethink how English is actually used by natives. This sadly includes a lot of teachers and writers of textbooks and tests. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 03 '22 at 18:36
  • @EdwinAshworth Pretty damned enlightened. Is this a quote from GP or one of his disciples? "What grammarians say should be has perhaps less influence on what shall be than even he more modest of them realize; usage evolves itself little disturbed by their likes and dislikes. [examples of contested words] from our [illegible. Past?] as an odd jumble, and plainly show that the language has not been neatly constructed by a master builder who could create each part to do the exact work required of it, neither overlapped, nor overlapping; far from it, its parts have had to grow as they could." – Zan700 Jul 03 '22 at 18:56
  • Pullum himself. But Orwell's Sixth is well known, and there has been a lot of discussion on ELU in recent years about acceptability per se vs grammaticality. Also, Pullum is a better advisor hereabouts than the chap on the Clapham omnibus. And quite possibly than all the chaps on the next 50 Clapham omnibuses. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 03 '22 at 19:02
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    @EdwinAshworth I've edited to include a version with the preposition postponed (stranded). I originally didn't want to muddy the waters, but I suppose that the answer is more comprehensive now. – MarcInManhattan Jul 03 '22 at 19:53