Reflexive pronoun WHOM

Why is "whom" used as a reflexive pronoun ?

e. g.
We saw a lot of people, many of whom were sick.

Why can't I say: "We saw a lot of people, many of them were sick?"

e. g.
The seven defendants, two of whom (why not „them“)
were absent from the court, are charged with burglary.

Thank you for the answer.
thomas

[RonBee]

Originally Posted by tmarkl

Why is "whom" used as a reflexive pronoun ?

e. g.
We saw a lot of people, many of whom were sick.

Why can't I say: "We saw a lot of people, many of them were sick?"

You can say that, but if you write it that way you have a punctuation problem. Perhaps:

• We saw a lot of people, and many of them were sick.

You could also use a semicolon or a period in place of the comma.

Originally Posted by tmarkl

e. g.
The seven defendants, two of whom (why not „them“)
were absent from the court, are charged with burglary.

You can't use them in place of whom, but you can use them, thus:

• Two of the seven defendants were absent from court. All of them have been charged with burglary.

[Tdol]

Them is a pronoun, whom is a relative pronoun. In your version, you need a relative, but Ron's version works.