On 25-Jun-09, at 8:46 AM, Dick Veit wrote:

> In my dialect, I can't say "Whose is this wallet?" (or "To whom  
> belongs this wallet?") although I probably could say, "This wallet  
> is whose?" and even "This wallet belongs to whom?"

This strikes me as Dick's personal idiolect. As far as I know, there  
is no generally described North America or British dialect that  
prohibits constructions such as "whose is this wallet," though Dick  
doesn't explain what he objects to so it's not exactly clear what we  
should be comparing.

Examples of similar constructions include:
Tom Sawyer: Look here, Joe Harper, whose is that tick?
The Secret Garden: There he is in the bush. Whose is he?
The Bible: Whose is this image, and superscription?

 From the OED:
Date  	Author 		Match
1748   	A. Richardson   VII. lv. 194 '	Whose is this?' 'Mine, sir',  
chuffily
1916	H. James    	Whose is it?
1921   	P. LUBBOCK	attered facts, 	whose is this new point of view? It i
1936   	M. ALLINGHAM	ings Bank? ..  	Whose is it?'
1883  	D. C. MURRAY	e voice. .. ' '	Whose is it?'
1923   	editor		perh. repr. '	whose is this?']
1320	?		whose is witer and wys of wit.

More recent examples from the Corpus of Current American English can  
be found here:
<http://www.americancorpus.org/x1.asp?q=1106195>
<http://www.americancorpus.org/x1.asp?q=1106193>
<http://www.americancorpus.org/x1.asp?q=1106188>

The last two options that Dick suggests are echo questions. In  
standard English, echo questions are usually used only in response  
statements (e.g., a: "This wallet is his." b: "This wallet is whose?").

Best,
Brett

-----------------------
Brett Reynolds
English Language Centre
Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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