whomever/whoever

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Kilimanjaro

#239351 Fri, 23 Jun 06 03:12 PM

I'll send these invitation cards to whomever/whoever may come to the party

a) whoever

b) whomever

Which one is correct? Thank you

Kilimanjaro

Joined on Sat, Dec 3 2005

İzmir

Full Member (266)

Invitations

Mister Micawber

#239353 Fri, 23 Jun 06 03:20 PM

Whoever, as the subject of the verb may come, takes grammatical priority. The whole clause is the object of the preposition, to.

Mister Micawber

Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004

Yokohama

Veteran Member (20,364)

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'

Clauses, Prepositions, Verbs

Kilimanjaro

#239360 Fri, 23 Jun 06 03:34 PM

Mister Micawber wrote:

Whoever, as the subject of the verb may come, takes grammatical priority. The whole clause is the object of the preposition, to.

Does a little bit of alteration change the choice Micawber? as in :

I'll send these invitation cards to whomever/whoever the party was arranged for. (in this case both relative pronouns seem to be in object position)

Kilimanjaro

Clauses, Invitations, Nouns, Prepositions, Pronouns, Relative pronouns, Verbs

Mister Micawber

#239364 Fri, 23 Jun 06 03:46 PM

Yes-- now the whomever is the object of the preposition in the relative clause-- in formal English. You should note, however, that the subject pronoun is becoming more acceptable with the deferred preposition.

Mister Micawber

Clauses, Nouns, Prepositions, Pronouns

Kilimanjaro

#239369 Fri, 23 Jun 06 04:03 PM

Thanks Micawber.

Kilimanjaro

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