To whom/whom

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MrPedantic

#70128 Wed, 26 Jan 05 01:33 PM

Hello Casi

I would have said the other way round:

Question: Who(m) did you make read the book?
Question: ?Who(m) was made to read the book?
Question: Who was made to read the book?

MrP

MrPedantic

Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004

Veteran Member (12,167)

...opella forensis / adducit febris...

Whom

paco2004

#70129 Wed, 26 Jan 05 01:33 PM

Hello Casi

Thank you for the message. Speaking frankly I'm still in the mud of this question. I've thought about it since I put the last posting.

One of the problems we, ESL learners, (or I should say at least me) have is that we tend to try to understand English sentences through the superficial grammar rules. For example, we tend to take an IO as the same whatever type of sentence it is in. Let me explain what I mean by showing some examples. Please take two example sentences :(1) "I met him yesterday." (2) "I gave him a book," I was taught in school that the two 'him's (him and him) are completely equal grammatically (syntactically) as well as semantically. But now I feel there is some difference between hem. I imagine, to you (native English speakers), him and him are different things. Maybe you take him purely as the object of a verb 'meet', but as to him, I guess you must take it as a new possessor of the book as well as the object of the verb 'gave'. This would be the reason why you tend to get disinclined to construct a wh-question sentence like "Whom did you give the book?". I think it is a phenomenon specific to English which retains still some structural relics of Germanic languages but almost lost the case concepts (dative and accusative). For example, in German where noun cases are still retained, I think, they can say "Wem gibst du das Buch?".

paco

[PS] "?Who(m) did you make read the book?". This is very interesting. No grammar books say expliciltly this construct is ungrammatical. But actullay it seems you native speakers rarely use this structure. I confirmed it through Google surveys.

paco2004

Joined on Wed, Nov 17 2004

Senior Member (4,095)

In Japan today even dogs are learning how to bow-wow in English.

Grammar, Verbs, Difference Between, Nouns, Whom, Accusative

CalifJim

#70163 Wed, 26 Jan 05 04:12 PM

All of the following seem fine to me -- no preceding "?" needed:

Who did you make read the book?
Who did the teacher make stay after school?
Who did the boss let go?
Who did he have paint the house?
Who did they name chairperson?
Who did they elect president?
Who did she give a kiss?
Who did they send the letter?

OK - The last two need a little question mark, especially the very last!

CJ

( Whisper [:-*]

causative )

CalifJim

Joined on Mon, Aug 2 2004

California

Veteran Member (17,714)

"There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche

Whom, Question Marks

paco2004

#70206 Wed, 26 Jan 05 10:24 PM

Hello Jim

Among the sentences you presented, #5 and #6 are not of causative construct.
'Chairman' and 'presidents' work there as complements to the objects.
1. Who did you make read the book? 2. Who did the teacher make stay after school?
3. Who did the boss let go? 4. Who did he have paint the house?
5. Who did they name chairperson? 6. Who did they elect president?
7. Who did she give a kiss? 8. Who did they send the letter?

I did Google surveys for some sentences you presented. The results were below.
I don't know how we should interpret them, though I)m interested with that of 'let go'.
Who did you make read ...? (he=0 hits you=0 hits)
Who did he make stay... ? (he=0 hits you=0 hits)
Who did he/you let go ....? (he=0 hits you=6 hits)
Who did he/you have paint...? (he=0 hits you=2* hits)
(*: one of the two is a Japanese site for English grammar)

As to the 'give' structure, the Google results were as follows:
Who did you give it? (0 hits) Whom did you give it? (0 hits)
To who did you give it ? (22 hits) To whom did you give it? (174 hits)
Who did you give it to? (418 hits) Whom did you give it to (169 hits)

paco

paco2004

Grammar, Whom, English Grammar

MrPedantic

#70211 Wed, 26 Jan 05 11:32 PM

Hello Paco

I'm interested in your comment about structural relics. I wonder whether the structure itself is the relic – i.e. in certain constructions, the word order became established at a time when the dative still existed; the inflexions were lost, gradually, but the word order remained.

Certainly I have a sense of 'dativity' in 'I gave him': of 'action towards'.

Interrogative 'whom' is a troublesome word. It feels oddly alien to me. I suspect its history holds some murky secrets.

MrP
PS: I forgot to remove all the brackets in my last post – corrected versions:

1. *Whom was made to read the book? [not ok; 'whom' can't be the subject of the verb]
2. Who was made to read the book? – ok.
3. ...several of whom were made to read the book. – ok.

MrPedantic

Verbs, Constructions, Word Order, Whom

paco2004

#70230 Thu, 27 Jan 05 12:31 AM

Hi MrP

Yeah I agree to your view that the double objects construction had been established when case inflection was still retained English. I guess you are rather special in linguistic sense. I'm a little doubtful of common English speakers in the sense of differentiating objects into dative and accusative. In this regard I am interested in what way an English speaking child acquires the meaning of "Mom gave me this book" My guess is like this:"I wanted this book and mom gave me this book and now it is my book" I feel English speaking children first acquire the meaning of the double objects construction by the result that the book came to be under their possession.

paco

paco2004

Regards, Constructions, Whom, Accusative, Inflections

CalifJim

#70246 Thu, 27 Jan 05 02:47 AM

Among the sentences you presented, #5 and #6 are not of causative construct.
'Chairman' and 'presidents' work there as complements to the objects.

Neither are #7 and #8. But the point was made that some grammarians analyze the structure of "give" or "send" as if it contained an implicit causative -- an idea which seems perfectly logical to me. Among other things, I was showing that there are indeed other structures with two objects which are not causatives, and yet can be analyzed as if they contained an implicit causative. It seems to me that if one can grant causative status to "give" and "send", then certainly one can grant it to "name" and "elect", which to my mind are even closer to the idea of causation.

She gave me a kiss. > She gave so as to cause that I have a kiss. > She caused (by giving) that I have a kiss.
They sent us a letter. > They sent so as to cause that we have a letter. > They caused (by sending) that we have a letter.
They named Sue chairperson. > They named so as to cause Sue to be (named) chairperson. > They caused (by naming) that Sue be(come) chairperson.
They elected Bill president. > They elected so as to cause Bill to be (elected) president. > They caused (by electing) that Bill be(come) president.

The same (now tiresome) paradigm can be used with phrasal verbs as well, and I see a parallel to be drawn. I'm sure someone somewhere has already discussed it at great length.

Briefly,

He woke me up. > He caused (by waking) that I be up. (where "up" = "awake")
They threw the boxes out. > He caused (by throwing) that the boxes be out.

In other words, even though we give all sorts of different names to slightly different stuctures, there are many ways to group these structures by their common elements.

In some sense, looking only at the structure in its broad outline:
He named me emperor. = He gave me grief. = He woke me up. = He let me speak.

This post doesn't have a point, in case you're looking for one. I just thought it was worth thinking about and maybe would stimulate a little discussion!

Smile [:)]

CalifJim

Verbs, Whom, Phrasal Verbs

paco2004

#70411 Thu, 27 Jan 05 06:46 PM

Hello CJ

I see. Yes many transitive verbs can be interpreted semantically as causatives. I agree to it.

I'm now getting to feel we can extract 'who' from the small clauses of the causative structures.
I found some sentences possibly to prove it.

[MAKE]
1) Who did you make smile today? 2) Who did you make laugh today? 3) Who did you make throw up? 4) Who did you make cry this time? 5) Who can you make work for you?
[HAVE]
1) Who did you have repair it for the first time? 2) Who did you have play this guitar? 3) Who did you have voice your translations? 4) Who did you have work on it with you? 5) Who did you have fix the problem?
[LET]
1) Who did you let get an inside peak? 2) Who did you let ride your horses there? 3) Who did you let break your heart? 4) Who did you let drive your truck and why? 5) Who did you let milk her (=a cow)?

So the problem I'm still in the mud of is why English native speakers feel odd when they hear a who-question of double objects sentences.

paco

paco2004