Which v whom

Receive feedback on your performance and improve your score quick. This sentence is difficult because it contains a clause. A complex sentence contains an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. An independent clause can stand alone as a sentence, but a dependent clause even though it has a subject and a verb cannot stand alone. The last clause is adjectival clause. To put it simply: it means this part of the sentence functions aims to tell us more about the other part of the sentence.

Who went to the cinema? Friend and one of them was the birthday boy. The key lies in the subject and object of the clauses. Need to read more on subjects and objects in sentences? Check out our other blog post: Grammar Subjects and Objects in English. By Mignon Fogarty Grammar Girl. August 18, We are currently experiencing playback issues on Safari. If you would like to listen to the audio, please use Google Chrome or Firefox.

About the Author. Follow Facebook Linkedin Pinterest. Her ate my sandwich. That means the word you want is who. Whom ate my sandwich? Who ate my sandwich? I should talk to him.

Whom should I talk to about labeling food in the refrigerator? You can also use questions to determine when to use who and when to use whom. Are you talking about someone who is doing something? The car is driven to school by Gina. No, the subject of the sentence car is not performing the action.

Essential clauses That always indicates a clause that is essential to the meaning of the sentence because it defines or identifies the noun it refers to. Lisa wore the shoes that she bought in Italy. What shoes? The ones that she bought in Italy. The clause identifies the shoes. Which may also be used to introduce an essential clause. Lisa wore the shoes which she bought in Italy. Non-essential clauses Which is used in a non-essential clause modifying an animal or a thing.

A non-essential clause is separated from its noun with a comma: Lisa wore her best leather shoes, which she bought in Italy. Her best leather ones. The clause is not needed to identify the shoes, so it is non-essential. Who vs. The people who just boarded the plane are in a rock band. The pronoun is subject of the verb boarded. The cousin whom we met at the family reunion is coming to visit. The pronoun is object of the verb met.