Discussion Groups / English Usage / May 2009

But I think I have just realised that X in "X is awake" can never be an
object. Tits.

Eq.

It's a "vocative."  The person or thing being addressed.  "Vocative"
is not the only term for it.

You seem a bit confused.  The case of a relative pronoun is governed
by its position in the dependent clause of which it is a part, so the
relation of "who[m]ever" to anything other than "is awake" is
irrelevant. Within the dependent clause "whoever is awake," it's
clearly the subject.  The entire three-word clause is the vocative in
the full sentence "Hello, whoever is awake."

It is common these decadent days for people to try to determine the
case of a pronoun by assuming it is governed by the grammar of the
independent clause within which is buried the dependent clause of
which it is a part.  This leads to such errors as "He is the person
whom I believe committed the crime," and the infamous "Let he who is
without sin cast the first stone."  Nowadays, such things are
tolerated for the most, primarily (IMO) because they're so common that
there's no getting rid of them.  But in traditional English grammar
they are just plain wrong.

On May 3, 8:15 pm, "Paul E Collins" <find_my_real_addr...@CL4.org>
wrote:

"Mum" would be both the subject and the object in the sentence.