From: Stephen Carlson (scc@ropes.reston.icl.com)
Date: Fri Dec 15 1995 - 07:54:03 EST
Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>At 10:25 PM 12/13/95, James D. Ernest wrote:
>>I beg the indulgence of list members for a question of English grammar.
Although about English, I hope to relate this message to the analogous
rules of Greek grammar and therefore be relevant to this list.
>>Which is correct (grammatically):
>>A: The Son of Man is the Messiah whom Jesus claims to be.
>>B: The Son of Man is the Messiah who Jesus claims to be.
>> ^^^
>>A: Jesus claims to be him.
>>B; Jesus claims to be he.
>> ^^
>>If pressed: I vote for the nominative.
>I too vote for the nominative in the above instances,
In light of other comments on this list calling for the objective
case (whom, him), I looked this issue up in my favorite reference
for the English language, R. Quick et al., A COMPREHENSIVE GRAMMAR
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (1985), and I found that certain verbs, one
of which is "to claim," take a subjectless infinitive clause as its
direct object. The 'understood' subject of this clause is "always
the same as the subject of the superordinatate clause." [Id. at
1187, # 16.38]. This means that the nominative is correct.
This grammatical rule in English was probably inherited from its
Indo-European ancestor, for we see its analog in Greek (and Latin).
Normally the expressed subject of an infinitive stands in the
accusative, if it is omitted, the subject of the infinitive is the
same as the subject or object of the governing clause [Smyth # 1972].
When the implied subject of the infinitive is the same as the subject
of the governing clause, the complement stands in the nominative [Id.
# 1973]. This rule appears to hold up in the Koine as well [BDF ##
396, 405; e.g. He11:4 EMARTURHQH EIVAI DIKAIOS], and also Latin if
my memory of it is correct.
The writers of this English grammar notes that for informal English,
the grammatical rule is changing from a case concord rule to a
territoriality rule. Basically, pronouns are found either in a
"subject territory" (before the verb) or in an "object territory"
(after the verb or preposition). Under this analysis, the rule favors
"who" in "The Son of Man is the Messiah who Jesus claims to be" because
"who" is in subject territory; and "him" in "Jesus claims to be him"
because "him" is in object territory. Territoriality is the reason
why "whom" is disappearing. Except after prepositions, as in "to whom,"
"whom" is always found in subject territory and therefore can be replaced
in informal English with "who." After prepositions, "whom" is in
object territory, so we almost never hear "to who"; however, English
allows the preposition to be moved after the verb, so the remaining "whom"
can be converted to "who" because it is now in subject territory.
Examples:
- You're the person to whom I spoke. [Formal & Informal: object territory]
- *You're the person to who I spoke. [Ungrammatical: object territory]
- You're the person whom I spoke to. [Formal: objective case concord]
- You're the person who I spoke to. [Informal: subject territory]
> but I hear in ever
>greater frequency the nominative used where it shouldn't, according to the
>old-timey rules: "This is the very best thing for HE AND I" and the like.
This phenomenon is due to a different informal English rule (one I saw
defended by an English professor on PBS!) in which certain compounds are
so tightly bound together that they become indeclinable. I suppose that
this is similar to Rv1:4 APO hO WN ktl. ("a very harsh construction" BDF
# 143 n.)
Stephen Carlson
-- Stephen Carlson : Poetry speaks of aspirations, : ICL, Inc. scc@reston.icl.com : and songs chant the words. : 11490 Commerce Park Dr. (703) 648-3330 : Shujing 2:35 : Reston, VA 22091 USA
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