Whom and the English Case System
by
Howard Lasnik
Nicholas Sobin
Department of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics
University of Connecticut
University of Wales, Bangor
Storrs, CT 06269, U.S.A.
Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2DG, U.K.
or
Department of English
UALR
2801 So. University Ave.
Little Rock, AR 72204, U.S.A.
[email protected]
[1]
1. Introduction
It is commonly assumed by both linguists and grammarians that whom in ModE as in sentence (1)
is a simple product of the normal Case system (Chomsky 1995), working in parallel to personal
pronouns such as him and them:1
(1) Whom can you see?
However, facts about the distribution of whom in ModE suggest an alternative view of its present
status and consequently of its historical development. At some past stage, whom may have been lost
from or forced out of the normal Case system. That is, changes may have occurred such that whom
was no longer producible by the normal Case system. A possible scenario is the following: (i) who
and whom never were Case marked along with the pronouns, but followed the Case marking on full
lexical (non-pronominal) NPs; (ii) as a consequence, whom was lost to the normal productive
grammar approximate to the time that lexical NPs stopped manifesting objective Case suffixes; and
(iii) whom in ModE has only artificial or ‘extra-grammatical’ support (somewhat in the sense of
Emonds 1986) from a special set of ad hoc monitoring rules (also labeled ‘grammatical viruses’ by
Sobin (1997))
We will first discuss modern evidence suggesting an ‘extra-grammatical’ analysis of
whom. Then we will deal with certain historical data suggesting that such an analysis of whom may
have its source in ME, as just suggested.
2. Some modern synchronic facts about whom
In ModE, whom has some surprising distributional characteristics which suggest that it is somehow
not operating by the normal system. For example, it commonly occurs in sentences such as (2), in
1
Early sections of this paper draw from the work of Lasnik & Sobin (forthcoming) and on earlier
work on Virus Theory, especially Sobin (1997). Since the length of this paper is limited, please
refer to those works for more detailed exposition of many of the points raised here. The authors
are greatful to a number of people for their input on this work in its present or earlier forms,
including Tony Aristar, Noam Chomsky, Michel DeGraff, Byrd Gibbens, Greg Iverson, Fritz
Newmeyer, Marylyn Parins, Carson Schütze, Anne Marie Sobin, and members of the audience at
ICHL XIV. Any errors are solely the responsibility of the authors.
[2]
which it corresponds to the subject of a finite clause:
(2)
a. We saw people whom we thought were happy.
b. We feed children whom we think are hungry.
Jespersen (1965 [1924]:appendix)
Jespersen points out many such examples and contends that this use is a found extensively. The
attention given to it by dictionaries and by prescriptive grammarians supports this contention.
Normal Case theory offers no insights into this use.2
Further, whom fails to appear where one would expect it to appear. Consider the questions
in (3):
(3)
a. For what?
b. What for?
c. For who?
d. Who for?
e. For whom?
f. *Whom for?
g. Whom did she buy it for?
Relative to the mobility of the other wh-forms in (3a-d), whom in (3e-f) appears frozen in place,
despite its apparent mobility in (3g). Here too, normal Case theory offers no explanation.
Also, consider the sentences in (4):
(4)
a. It was them.
b. *Whom was it?
c. It was whom?
d. Whom it will be is not important.
Again, from the standpoint of normal Case theory, the impossibility of (4b) is completely
unexpected. Further, there is no obvious reason why (4c) and (d) should be comparatively better.
Other considerations further set whom apart from the Case-marked personal pronouns.
Whom is not typical of child language, despite the fact that children typically use ACC personal
2 See Kayne (1984) for a normative analysis of this constructions and Lasnik & Sobin
(forthcoming) for arguments against this analysis.
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pronouns in abundance. How does one hide an ACC pronoun from a child? Further, adult
speakers are frequently unsure of its use, feeling that nearly all of its uses are to some degree
unnatural. In contrast, ACC personal pronouns are quite natural. In some constructions they in
fact signify normal, casual speech, as in (5a-c); it is the NOM forms as in (5d-f) which are less
natural:
(5)
a. Mary and me left.
b. It was me.
c. Mary is more agile than me.
d. Mary and I left.
e. It was I.
f. Mary is more agile than I.
Such facts suggest further that whom does not operate along the lines of ACC personal pronouns
and perhaps that whom operates outside the bounds of normal grammar itself. It is to these ideas
that we now turn.
3. Grammatically deviant prestige constructions and grammatical viruses.
Chomsky (in Olson & Faigley 1991) argues that many syntactic constructions which are the object
of grammar book instruction are
... a violation of natural law. In fact, a good deal of what’s taught is taught because it’s
wrong. You don’t have to teach people their native language because it grows in their
minds, but if you want people to say, “He and I were here” and not “Him and me were
here,” then you have to teach them because it’s probably wrong. (30)
The constructions (5d-f) are indeed objects of instruction rather than of natural language
acquisition. Whom constructions too are objects of instruction.
(5d-f) are among a group of constructions which Emonds (1986) terms ‘grammatically
deviant prestige constructions’, that is, constructions which are prestigious, but which the normal
grammar cannot fully produce. Emonds offers compelling arguments that the NOM pronouns in
these sentences are not derivable from the normal system of English Case assignment; rather, NOM
is assigned in each of these constructions by a separate ad hoc rule. Though linguistic theory has
changed considerably from the framework assumed by Emonds, his analysis nonetheless offers
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important basic insights into the workings of such constructions, and it provides much of the
conceptual basis for what Sobin (1997) terms Virus Theory.
Virus Theory, assuming basic features both of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program and of
Emonds’ analysis of these prestige constructions, claims that the unnatural and prestigious NOM
pronouns in sentences such as (5d-f) are each derived by a separate low-level rule, a ‘grammatical
virus’. The dimensions of such a rule might best be spelled out in terms of an example. Consider
rule (6), the rule which facilitates saying and I as in (5d).
(6)
The 'and I' Rule:
(= (33) in Sobin 1997:336)
If:
...
and
1
[Prn +1, +sg, NOM] ...
2
then:
check NOM on 2.
,
To fully understand this rule, it is necessary to recall certain aspects of Case assignment and
agreement in the Minimalist Program. Chomsky (1995:172 ff.) proposes that both Case assigment
and agreement are carried out in terms of feature checking in a specifier-head configuration Thus,
in a general X-bar structure like (7),with X a head and ZP a specifier, X and ZP comprise a checking
configuration:
(7)
(= (1) in Chomsky 1995:172)
XP
ZP
X’
X
YP
Further, all such checking is ‘local’. That is, all checking is between X and ZP, and no checking is
possible between X and a phrase properly contained within ZP. Such a limitation on Case checking
offers an immediate explanation for the differences in Case possibilities between sentences such as
(8a) (=I/*me left) with a simple subject, and those such as (8b=5a and d) (= Mary and me/I left)
with a coordinated subject:
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(8)
a.
b.
IP
IP
I’
I’
NP
I
I/*me
NP1
-ed
NP2
VP
leave
(=I/*me left)
Conj NP3
I
VP
Mary and
me
-ed
leave (=5a)
Mary and
I
-ed
leave (=5d)
Let’s allow the standard assumptions that finite tense inflections are heads in the X position of (7)
which check NOM Case on subjects, and that subjects occupy the specifier position ZP of (7).
Then given the locality restriction, an inflection will normally check NOM on a simple subject as in
(8a), but it cannot reach into a coordinated NP as in (8b) to check NOM on specifier-internal NPs,
NPs properly contained within the specifier. Instead, we get default ACC Case, as in (8b/5a). Now,
how do we derive the prestigious NOM pronoun in (8b/5d)? This is the sort of problem that
Emonds’ analysis and later Virus Theory both deal with.
Rule (6) simply checks the NOM Case feature on a pronoun I which follows and, allowing
sentences like (5d) to be derived. Rules such as (6) have certain signature properties. First, they
optimally involve specific lexical items, so that they are virtual syntactic idioms. Thus, the and I
Rule works most naturally with the words and and I, extending more marginally to other pronouns
such as we. (For experimental evidence supporting this claim, see Quattlebaum 1994). Second, the
rule is directional; the key elements of the rule cannot be reversed. For example, rule (6) does not
check the Case feature of a pronoun preceding and. Both Emonds and Sobin argue that a separate
rule deals with these pronouns, and Quattlebaum’s (1994) experimental data corroborate this claim.
The consequence of such a limitation is a third property, ‘underextension’: such rules fail to apply
everywhere that they ideally should if they were normal rules. Thus, rule (6) cannot check NOM
on subject pronouns generally. A fourth property of such rules is ‘overextension’: they operate on
only very local cues, and as a result are blind to larger context. Thus, the and I Rule cannot see
whether an and I sequence is part of a subject or an object, which immediately explains the
tendency of many speakers to use this rule to produce hypercorrect constructions such as (9), with
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object and I:
(9) Mary rode with Max and I.
Finally, virus products are not characteristic of child language. They are normally the object of
instruction In adult speech they are optional and expendible, and there are casual speech varieties
that do without them entirely.
Now, with this very brief sketch of grammatical viruses, let’s return to considering whom.
4. Whom and grammatical viruses
The behavior of whom parallels the behavior of grammatically deviant prestige constructions. To
demonstrate this, we will first offer what we think the rules are which explain whom, and then we
will try to show that these rules exhibit the properties characteristic of grammatical viruses.
We believe that there are in fact two rules involved in licensing whom, rules (10) and (11):
(10) The Basic ‘whom’ Rule (= (15) in Lasnik & Sobin forthcoming)
If: [V/P ]
who[ACC]
2
1
-m
[ACC]
3
,
then: check ACC on 3.
(11) The Extended ‘whom’ Rule (= (22) in Lasnik & Sobin forthcoming)
If:
who-
-m
...
[ACC]
2
1
NP
,
where
3
a) 3 is the first subject NP to the right of 2, and
b) ‘...’ does not contain a V which has 1-2 (a
single word whom) as its subject,
then: check ACC on 2.
Both of these rules treat whom as two morphemes: who-, which bears a Case feature, and a suffix m, which bears a separate ACC Case feature. In rule (10), who- must also bear ACC Case.
However, in rule (11), who- may bear any Case including NOM. The Case feature of the
morpheme who- must be checked by the normal system. Rules (10) and (11) only check the extra
Case feature introduced on the -m suffix, an additional Case which the normal system cannot check.
This Case feature may be checked by either rule (10) or (11), depending on its immediate
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surroundings as described in each rule. If neither rule applies and the Case feature remains
unchecked, the sentence is ungrammatical. At this point, examples are helpful.
Consider sentences such as (12):
(12)
a. Who saw whom?
b. Who went with whom?
c. With whom did she go?
d. *Everyone who was working whom didn’t get a raise ought to complain.
e. For whom?
(= 3e)
f. *Whom for?
(= 3f)
Rule (10) deals with post-verbal and post-prepositional whom. In the simplest terms, this
rule says that if you find a verb or a preposition followed by whom, then you can check the ACC
Case on the -m suffix, allowing the derivation to proceed. Sentences (12a), (b), (c), and (e) all
straightforwardly exhibit this sequence. Interestingly, so does (12d), but it fails. Here’s why:
assume that the Case on the morpheme who- making up the first part of whom is ACC. Rule (10)
can apply, but the sentence cannot survive the normal Case system with this ACC who- morpheme
because it is the subject of a finite clause, where only NOM will check. Alternatively, assume that
the who- making up the first part of whom has NOM Case. Then the normal system can check this
Case, but rule (10) cannot apply because it requires that the morpheme who- hosting the suffix -m
bear ACC Case. So either way, sentence (12d) will fail. (12e) and (f) are also noteworthy. In
(12e), the key elements show the wrong alignment for rule (10) so that it cannot apply and the
derivation fails. However, the order of key elements in (12f) matches the structural description of
rule (10) exactly, and the rule applies.
Let’s now consider rule (11) and the sentences in (13):
(13)
a. *Whom saw Mary?
b. *Whom can see Mary?
c. Whom can you see?
(= 1)
d. We saw people whom we thought were happy.
(= 2)
e. *Whom was it?
(= 4b)
f. It was whom?
(= 4c)
g. Whom it will be is not important.
(= 4d)
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Rule (11) deals with what we might call ‘solo fronted whom’, that is, whom which has been moved
as a single element. Rule (11) looks between whom and the first subject NP to its right for a
“main” (nonauxilliary) verb which has whom as a semantic subject. The rule is blocked if it finds
such a verb there. But if it finds no such verb, then rule (11) will check the extra ACC Case feature
of the -m suffix, allowing the derivation to proceed.
Consider first sentences (13a and b). Rule (11) cannot apply to these structures since
between whom and the NP to its right, there is in each sentence a main verb with whom as its
subject, the verbs saw and see, respectively. So these sentences fail.
Next, sentences (13c and d) are structures to which rule (11) can apply. In (13c), you is the
subject NP which delimits the search space, and in that space, there does not appear a main verb
with whom as its subject. Here, whom is an object, but that is not the reason that it is allowed; it is
allowed because there is no verb visible to rule (11) of which whom is a subject. This point is
underscored by sentence (13d), where whom corresponds to the subject of a finite clause. Rule
(11) does not impose any restriction on the Case of the morpheme who-. Here the Case for whowhich succeeds will be NOM. In (13d), rule (11) looks between whom and the NP we for the
‘lethal’ verb. Finding nothing, it can proceed to check ACC on the -m suffix.
Expletive constructions with a copular verb be such as (13e), (f), and (g), and (14) further
illustrate the properties of rule (11) just discussed. Evidently, subject complement NPs such as
them, they, and Mary in (14) have subject force or subject status with respect to the copular verb
sufficient to trigger or block rule (11):3
(14) It was them/??they/Mary.
Thus in sentence (13e), rule (11) looks between whom and it. There it finds was, which suffices to
block rule (11). In sentence (13f), the elements are not positioned properly to utilize rule (11), but
rule (10) can apply on the sequence was whom. This is allowed in part because subject
complements can have ACC case, as (14) indicates. Finally, sentence (13g) is a straightforward
product of rule (11). To the immediate right of whom is the NP it. Here, no verb appears which
would block rule (11), so it checks the ACC Case on the -m suffix.
3 Perhaps this is the basis for traditional grammar wanting to assign pronominals in this position
NOM Case.
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In sum, this analysis posits two rules describing the distribution of whom. There is
independent evidence from stylistic stratification suggesting the possibility of such a two-rule
division. Klima (1964) posits four styles of English. The most elevated style, his ‘L1 ’, contains all
whom uses. The next lower style, his ‘L2 ’, contains only the post-verbal and post-prepositional
uses in (12) which would result from rule (10). Follet (1966:360) recognizes the same division in
styles. This stylistic division suggests that knowledge of whom may be separated, as it is here,
between rules (10) and (11).
Let’s now compare these rules to other grammatical viruses in more general terms, posing
the following question: to what extent do the whom rules exhibit virus properties, the properties
discussed earlier in connection with the and I Rule? First, the whom rules exhibit lexical
specificity: they are aimed at facilitating whom. Second, these rules exhibit directionality. Rule
(10), for example, deals with post-verbal or post-prepositional whom and not with whom in another
arrangement of the same elements, as seen in (12f). Third, these rules exhibit underextension.
Each rule covers only a portion of the distribution of whom, and taken together, they still do not
allow all of the uses which a normal Case analysis would predict possible. Thus, we do not get
constructions such as (12f) or (13e). Fourth, the rules exhibit overextension; they appear to apply
where they ideally should not. Thus we find constructions such as (13d), with whom
corresponding to the subject of a finite clause. The reason is arguably the same as it is in the case
of the and I Rule: such rules operate only on very local cues, and are blind to the larger context.
Thus, we get the often-objected-to construction (13d) as readily as we get a desired construction
such as (13c).
Finally, whom like other virus products is not characteristic of child language, and it is the
object of instruction. In adult speech it is optional and expendible, and there is a natural alternative
form, who. There are styles of English which do without whom completely.
5. Some historical facts
Now let us turn to certain relevant historical facts which bear on this hypothesis. Though this part
of the analysis is still at a somewhat early stage, some facts seem nonetheless noteworthy.
Somehow, whom became ‘difficult’, dropping from ordinary speech. This gain in difficulty
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is not explained by associating whom with the corresponding ACC personal pronouns. There is at
least mild evidence suggesting the historical picture proposed earlier, namely that the Case forms of
who are to be associated with lexical non pronominal NPs, and it is with the loss of these Case
inflections that whom is forced from the normal Case system.
Jespersen’s (1965 [1924]) appendix containing examples of whom corresponding to a
subject such as (2b) also gives the early examples in (15) from Chaucer:
(15)
a.
(Chaucer?) Ros 3021 To spye and take whom that he fond Unto that
roser putte an hond
“To spy and take whom he found that on that rose bush put a hand”4
b.
Chaucer B 665 yet wol we us avyse Whom that we wole that (some
MSS. omit that) shal ben our justise|....
(Jespersen 1965 [1924]:appendix)
“now shall we consider whom that we will that shall be our judge”
Beyond finding such examples in ME, it is of interest to consider such examples against the
background of more typical whom use. (15b) is from ‘The Man of Law’s Tale’, second part. A
search of The Canterbury Tales for all whom uses using Benson’s Glossarial Database of ME
finds fifty-seven instances, including (15b). Of these fifty-seven whoms, forty-four appear in PPs,
forty-three of which have been moved. Some typical examples are in (16):
(16)
a. KnT:893(34) This duc, of whom I make mencioun,...5
“This duke, of whom I make mention”
b. KnT:1861(1005) To whom that Fortune yeveth so fair a grace.
“To whom Fortune gives so fair a grace.”
c. SNPro:38(39) In whom that God for bountee chees to wone,
“In whom that God for virtue chose to dwell,”
(16a) and (b) are instances of ‘short movement’--the wh-phrase (a PP) has been moved to the left
edge (Spec,CP) of its source clause. (16c) exemplifies the possibility of ‘long movement’--the wh4
Jespersen does not offer translations. We offer them here for the reader’s convenience.
5
Here, the first line number is the the Glossarial Database line number, and the parenthetical
number is the number which ELF assigns to the line.
[11]
phrase has been moved at least a clause away from its source clause.
The other thirteen sentences are ones where whom alone has been moved. Examples are
given in (17):
(17)
a. KnT:1143 To love my lady, whom I love and serve,
b. PhyT:278 .., for no man woot whom God wol smyte
“For no man knows whom God will smite”
Twelve of these thirteen movements are short movements. The only attempt at a long movement of
whom alone is (15b), and it is an overextension, as rule (11) predicts that it might be.6
So it appears possible that the sort of extra-grammatical treatment of whom in terms of rules
(10) and (11) argued for in ModE may have been in force by late ME. The forty-four postprepositional whoms would be straightforward products of rule (10). All thirteen moved whoms
would without exception be products of rule (11). There is nothing which we have found so far in
the body of whom usage in The Canterbury Tales which is inconsistent with the possibility that
whom may have already left the normal Case system.
To follow this scenario out, rule (11) may have been as ‘uncomfortable’ to employ in ME
as it is today. It is possible that rules (10) and (11) were perceived as ‘artificial’, and were dropped
from use. Jespersen (1974) cites the following from A New English Dictionary:
who ... ‘used ungrammatically for the objective whom,’ quotations from 1450 on; whom
... ‘The objective case of who: no longer current in natural colloquial speech.’ (Jespersen
1974:483)
Jespersen (1974) further claims that
From about 1500 who came to be used instead of whom, see Progr § 171 f. = ChE § 69 ff.
with many quotations form Marlowe, Sh, Addison, Dryden, Sheridan, Thack, Di, etc....In
many cases, modern editors print whom where the older editions of Sh have who.
(Jespersen 1974:482)
These are, of course, references to who being substituted for whom, another symptom found in
ModE usage of whom not having the normal Case system as its source. What we may be seeing
here is not simply underextension by viruses, but at some point non utilization: viruses are totally
6
Thus, Chaucer’s ‘hypercorrection rate’ on long movements in CT is 100%.
[12]
suspendable since their products are nonessential to the language.
Finally, at some later stage, whom returns, but again only as a virus, since that is the only
support available to it (since nominal Case marking has been lost). Hence we see the many
overextended uses cited by Jespersen.
6. Summary
To sum up, there is a case to be made that whom in ModE is not the result of the normal Case
system, but instead has extra-grammatical support from rules (10) and (11), rules cataloged as
grammatical viruses. Further, there is preliminary evidence that whom was lost to the normal Case
system (that is, it was forced to go ‘viral’) approximate to the time that overt Case was lost on
lexical (nonpronominal) NPs. This change was largely masked by the continuing presence of
whom in later English usage. Much more work is needed to develop this picture.
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