Yes, speakers of English have some sense of case that guides them in use
of pronouns other than 'who', at least when a pronoun appears alone
rather than in a conjoined structure. But I would say that, absent a
preceding preposition, it may well be true that "no one has a clear
understanding of when to use who and when to use whom". Again, the
preposition is the cue to use 'whom', not whatever sense of case guides
people in the use of other pronouns. Children learn to use 'whom' after
a preposition because they hear it used there; this is probably the last
construction in which use of 'whom' is consistent. 'Whom' has not
entirely disappeared from 'middle-class English', but it is on its way out.

If it were a sense of case that guided people in using 'whom' after a
preposition, then people would use 'whom' a lot more in other
situations, such as questions. They would use that sense of case more widely.

So, do Biber et al. have any data on nominal and relative clauses with 'who'?

And I'd still like to know from other listers whether they have to work
with their students on who/whom. This would be one kind of evidence of
how strong knowledge of the case rules for 'whom' are, no? Do you find
yourself correcting 'whom' errors in student papers? I do. When students
ask, I tell them to use the pronoun-substitution trick: substitute
'he/him' or 'she/her' or 'they/them'. This gets tricky in relative
clauses, since the student has to restore the clause to its basic order:

The man whom I met yesterday -- I met _him_ yesterday ...

And in cases like the one Edith cited, the 'disjunctive' (a la French)
use of object-case pronouns gets  in the way:

we know who you are --- you are her/him  vs. you are he/she ... many
speakers would  feel that 'you are her' sounds right.

In a survey of middle-class workers that I conducted with my students a
few years ago, I got these responses to who/whom sentences:

The police will arrest whomever is caught entering the condemned
structure. (should be 'whoever')

        Do not see an error: 33%
        See error, but it does not bother them: 14%
        Total: 47% of respondents

A short list of finalists will be compiled from the candidates who we
interview. (should be 'whom')
        Do not see an error: 8%
        See error, but it does not bother them: 15%
        Total: 24% of respondents

This group's task is to choose the employees whom the President will
greet. (no error; 'whom' is correct)
        See an error, and are bothered by it a lot: 8.5%
        See an error, and are somewhat bothered by it: 35%
        Total: 43.5%

67% of the respondents were 35 or older. These data show that there is
some confusion about 'whom' even among older respondents. (I should say
that I had to assume that the respondents were reacting to the 'who/m'
usages and not some other part of the sentence. We didn't build in a way
to be sure of this.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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