Some Facts about Who and Whom

Abstract

In this paper we consider the relative frequencies of the four basic types of human objective relative clauses in English(The woman I love, The woman that I love, The woman Whom I love, The woman who I love) in a variety of literary sources for colloquial speech from Shakespeare to the present, and attempt to relate these to Klima's four types or stages of English (L_1, L_2, L_3, L_4). Evidence is offered to show that Klima overlooked an important type with I, he, we in the places where, L_4 has me, him, us, regardless of government or agreement, here called L_2 1/2. In all or nearly all sources the clause-type represented by "The woman who I love" is the rarest and either "The woman I love", or (in George V. Higgins-and Mark Twain) "The woman that I love" is the most frequent type. The type(mentioned by Klima in a footnote) which regularly employs "He asked who I loved" but prefers "The woman whom I love" to "The woman who I love" (here called L_1 1/2) is shown to be clearly preferred to Klima's L_2 from Shakespeare on down to the present, as well as to L_1.