LINGUIST List 10.1053

Fri Jul 9 1999

Disc: Query/Discussion: Prep+relative who

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Kevin R. Gregg, Re: 10.1049, Disc: Query/Discussion: Prep+relative who
2. Kaye, Alan, RE: 10.1049, Disc: Query/Discussion: Prep+relative who

Message 1: Re: 10.1049, Disc: Query/Discussion: Prep+relative who

I hope I'm not duplicating anyone's earlier comment, but while I, too, find
the corpus examples of 'to who' etc. extremely unnatural (while also
finding 'whom' hopelessly stilted), I see nothing at all odd about such
locutions in isolation:
 A: This paper should be quite useful.
 B: To who?/Who to? (cf. ?To whom? /??Whom to?)

 A: I'm going to complain.
 B: To who?/About who?/ Who to?/ Who about? (?To whom?/ ?About
whom?/??Whom to? /??Whom about?)
 where the ? 's simply indicate my naive-native sense of
unnaturalness (middle-aged, West Coast US General American, 20-year expat);
Lord knows I wouldn't use any of them on a bet.




Kevin R. Gregg
Momoyama Gakuin University
(St. Andrew's University)
1-1 Manabino, Izumi
Osaka 594-1198 Japan
tel.no. 0725-54-3131 (ext. 3622)
fax. 0725-54-3202

Message 2: RE: 10.1049, Disc: Query/Discussion: Prep+relative who

Wanting to contribute something useful to readers of LINGUIST and the who
vs. whom discussion, I wish to mention that all of this and many
interrelated issues have been taken up in my 1991 "Is English Diglossic?",
English Today 28 (8-14). My contention was that WHOM survives only in
acrolectic English.

Alan Kaye
Linguistics
CSU, Fullerton
Fullerton, CA 92834

akayefullerton.edu