With Whom I Had Been Speaking

To who/whom am I speaking with?

Contents:

  • As relative pronouns
  • All prepositions in English govern the same case (objective case)
  • The word “whom” isn't a natural part of the English case system
  • In questions
  • To who/whom am I speaking with? | WordReference Forums
  • who / whom

    • As relative pronouns

    Would you like to answer one of these unanswered questions instead? Home Questions Tags Users Unanswered. Is it grammatically correct to say "One of the disadvantages of chatrooms is that you do not know the people with whom you are talking"? Noah 9, 42 97 Both are correct, and there is no change in meaning.

    This is an example of Pied-piping , which is characteristic of a more formal style. Which may or may not be appropriate for a chat room. Related in numeric not relateness order though: Saying "the people you are talking to" would be the best way. Even better the people you're talking to. You wouldn't say "I'm doing the project with he ," you would say "I'm doing the project with him.

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    In German some prepositions can be dative or accusative, depending on whether they indicate motion or placement towards or up to a location. This not the case no pun intended in English. In English, the object of the preposition always takes the "prepositional" case. Note that there are not nearly as many inflectional changes or pronoun substitutions in English as in German. The point is, German is not necessarily useful for analogizing English constructions. And, since accusative and dative forms both look like whom , you know it should always be whom if you are using whom at all.

    It is worth also noting that whom is falling out of use, and so who could theoretically be used everywhere when speaking in a register that doesn't use whom. In your case, the person is the object of the sentence, while I'm is the subject.

    All prepositions in English govern the same case (objective case)

    So, in a work situation, I would never say "who am I talking to? And it's good to know that whenever you have a preposition next to 'who', it always become 'whom'. How would I ask for the name of the person Im speaking with? Last edited by a moderator: Who do you think we should support? In questions Who made this decision?

    Even though the sentence has a questionable structure, it's correct. This article by Mignon Fogarty "Grammar Girl" does a remarkable job explaining when to use who and whom.

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    However, it's not the only way, or necessarily the best way of expressing this idea. English has a very limited case system.

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    Case is only marked on some pronouns, not on any regular nouns. And only two forms are distinguished: The only complication I can think of is that some words, such as than, may be treated by some native speakers as prepositions in which case a following pronoun must be in the objective case , and by others as conjunctions in which case a following pronoun may be in the nominative case , e. Also, I think Kosmonaut was right to point out the " an X of mine" construction as another possibly confusing case.

    Basic English Grammar - Have, Has, Had

    I don't know if I would say that "of" governs the genitive case in this construction; when I tried to find an analysis of its grammatical structure, I came across various explanations. But it definitely looks at first sight like a case of a preposition governing the genitive case in English. You can find a few examples online of "of whose" being used in a context like this; e. Life in an Andean Village by Julia Meyerson. However, in formal writing or speech, the form whom may be used in objective-case contexts where who would be used in colloquial speech.

    The word “whom” isn't a natural part of the English case system

    Although if you were trying to be more consistent/correct, you'd actually write “to whom are you talking?” so you don't have “proposition stranding”. But all of. "Whom" has never been necessary in English for understanding what is . So you can have "to whom am I speaking" or "who am I speaking to".

    The only circumstance where whom is required rather than an optional replacement for who is in a certain construction that doesn't really occur in colloquial speech. Your sentence actually uses this construction. It is called " pied-piping " of prepositional phrases: In colloquial English, the preposition is usually stranded left in place rather than fronted in clauses of this type. This also obviates the need for any relative pronoun at all:. Kosmonaut mentioned this alternative in a comment. In fact, it's hard for me to think of situations where it would be inappropriate.

    Maybe in formal legal documents. It sounds somewhat unnatural, and markedly higher-register to use a fronted prepositional phrase containing a relative pronoun like this. John Lawler has mentioned in a comment that " whom is required only when it is the object of a pied-piped preposition.

    If you strand the preposition, it sounds best to me to omit the relative pronoun, but it is also possible to use an explicit relative pronoun in this context. If you do, either who or that sounds OK to me.

    In questions

    Some people think "that" cannot be used for animates, but this is a misguided viewpoint. Still, it may be true that "who" would sound better than "that" in this sentence. To me, it doesn't sound good to use whom at the start of a relative clause with a stranded preposition. If I wanted to use whom, I would prefer to use pied-piping as well, as in sentence 2.

    John Lawler seems to feel the same way about this as I do; however, Janus Bahs Jacquet pointed out in a comment that sentences like 4 sound natural to him, so it seems not everyone agrees about this.

    To who/whom am I speaking with? | WordReference Forums

    Even the most pedantic grammar "authorities" agree that preposition-stranding is grammatical, so this sentence can't be said to have objectionable grammar unless you take the unconventional view that the word "whom" is objectionable. See the answers to the following question: Prepositions at the end of sentence and whom. I can't imagine any circumstance where this sentence would be preferable to 1, 2, 3 or 4. I actually would call it ungrammatical, although some people might disagree with me about that see Janus Bahs Jacquet's comment on the following post: Can I use "who" instead?

    With questions, there's another structure to be aware of. While questions in English normally exhibit fronting of the question word, there are also "Wh-in-situ" questions where the question word occurs in the same place as the corresponding noun phrase in a corresponding declarative sentence. This is common in "echo questions" where a speaker indicates disbelief by repeating a declarative sentence with a word replaced with an interrogative pronoun, as in the following short dialogue:. You Want Me to Work with Who?: No Matter Who You Work With , by Julie Jansen Note also that the subtitle is an example of the "fronted who as object of stranded preposition" construction.

    Dalrymple, the original pieces by James Dalrymple, This doesn't mean it can't be followed by who. In modern English, the pronoun who can be used as either a nominative case form or an objective case form.

    who / whom

    The pronoun whom is only used as an objective form; it's optional in most contexts. However, it is strongly preferred over who in one particular circumstance: It would sound bad to use "with who" in these contexts. However, in colloquial English this construction with whom is avoided by stranding the preposition: As all we know, it's not so simple Yes it's wrong but you know I'm right, we say it! So you'd have to correct before, if you'd like to know whether "whom" or "who" would match with "Him" or "He" etc.

    However, we also have an other problem with: