Inanimate whose

The inanimate whose, also known as the whose inanimate or non-personal whose, refers to the use in English of the relative pronoun whose with non-personal antecedents, as in: "That's the car whose alarm keeps waking us up at night." Its use dates from the 15th century, but from the 18th century drew criticism from those who apparently considered it to be the genetive (possessive) only of the relative pronoun who and therefore believed it should be restricted to personal antecedents. Critics of inanimate whose prefer constructions such as those using of which, a construction others find clumsy or overly formal.

Usage

Users of the inanimate whose employ it as a relative pronoun with non-personal antecedents, as in:

"That's the car whose alarm keeps waking us up at night."

Those who avoid using whose with non-personal antecedents assert that it is the genetive (possessive) of only the relative pronoun who. They employ alternatives such as of which, as in:^[1]

"That's the car of which the alarm keeps waking us up at night."

or

"That's the car the alarm of which keeps waking us up at night."

Those who object to this use of of which may find it clunky or overly formal.^[2]

The inanimate whose is restricted to the relative pronoun; English speakers do not use whose as an non-personal interogative possessive: the whose in "Whose car is this?" can refer only to a person.^[3]

History

In Old English the genetive of the nueter pronoun hwæt ("what") was hwæs, which later evolved as whose into the genetive of which.^[4] The first recorded instance of inanimate whose occurs in 1479.^[5] It appears repeatedly in the King James Version of the Bible and in the writing of Shakespeare, Milton, and others.^[6]

In some dialects thats has arisen as a colloquial genetive relative pronoun for non-personal antecendents, as in:^[7]

"That's the car thats alarm keeps waking us up at night."

Style guides

In his Dictionary of Modern English Usage, H. W. Fowler derided those who prescribed against the inanimate whose,^[4] writing: "in the starch that stiffens English style one of the most effective ingredients is the rule that whose shall refer only to persons"; he asserted it adds flexibility to style^[8] and proclaimed: "Let us, in the name of common sense, prohibit the prohibition of inanimate whose".^[8] The revised versions of the style guide by Robert Burchfield (1996) and Jeremy Butterfield (2015) called the avoidance of the inanimate whose a "folk-belief".^[4][9] In his Plain Words, Ernest Gowers calls the "grammarians' rule" that whose "must not be used of inanimate objects ... a cramping one, productive of ugly sentences and a temptation to misplaced commas". He states that "sensible writers have always ignored the rule, and sensible grammarians have now abandoned it".^[10]

In Modern American Usage, Bryan A. Garner calls the inanimate whose an "often an inescapable way of avoiding clumsiness".^[11] Merriam–Webster's states the "notion that whose may not properly be used of anything except persons is a superstition" and such use is "entirely standard as an alternative to of which in all varieties of discourse".^[12]

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language emphasizes such "genitives ... are completely grammatical and by no means exceptional",^[13] with a note that "a number of usage manuals feel it necessary to point out that relative whose can have a non-personal antecedent: there are apparently some speakers who are inclined to think that it is restricted to personal antecedents".^[13]

References

1. Johansson 1993, p. 97; Quirk et al. 1985, pp. 1249–1250; Huddleston & Pullum 2002, pp. 1049–1050.
2. Johansson 1993, p. 97; Quirk et al. 1985, pp. 1249–1250.
3. Jespersen 1993, p. 152.
4. Burchfield 1998, p. 849.
5. Bergs & Stein 2001, p. 88.
6. Burchfield 1998, p. 849; Fowler 2009, p. 728.
7. Pearce 2012, p. 156.
8. Fowler 2009, p. 727.
9. Fowler 2015, pp. 887–888.
10. Gowers & Fraser 1973, p. 146; Gowers & Gowers 2014, pp. 220–221.
11. Garner 2009, p. 837.
12. Merriam-Webster 2002, pp. 782–783.
13. Huddleston & Pullum 2002, pp. 1049–1050.

Works cited

• Bergs, Alexander T.; Stein, Dieter (2001). "The Role of Markedness in the Actuation and Actualization of Lingusitic Change". In Andersen, Henning. Actualization: Linguistic Change in Progress. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 79–94. ISBN 90-272-3726-3.
• Burchfield, R. W. (1998). The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (Revised 3 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-860263-7.
• Fowler, H. W. (2009). Crystal, David, ed. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage: The Classic First Edition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-161511-5.
• Fowler, H. W. (2015). Butterfield, Jeremy, ed. Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-966135-0.
• Garner, Bryan (2009). Garner's Modern American Usage. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-987462-0.
• Gowers, Ernest; Fraser, Bruce (1973). The Complete Plain Words. H. M. Stationery Office. ISBN 978-0-11-700340-8.
• Gowers, Ernest; Gowers, Rebecca (2014). Plain Words. Particular. ISBN 978-0-241-96035-6.
• Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43146-8.
• Jespersen, Otto (1993) [1933]. Essentials of English Grammar. Routledge. ISBN 9780415104401.
• Johansson, Christine (1993). "Whose and Of Which with non-personal antecedents in written and spoken English". In Souter, Clive; Atwell, Eric. Corpus-based Computational Linguistics. Rodopi. pp. 97–117. ISBN 90-5183-485-3.
• Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage. Penguin. 2002. ISBN 9780877796336.
• Pearce, Michael (2012). The Routledge Dictionary of English Language Studies. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-26428-5.
• Quirk, Randolph; Greenbaum, Sidney; Leech, Geoffrey; Svartvik, Jan (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-51734-9.