someone whose being interviewed

[navi tasan]

Are these sentences correct?

1) He is someone interrogating whom is necessary to establish what happened that night.
2) He is someone whose being interviewed is necessary to establish what happened that night.

I want to know if these structures are grammatical. It seems that the sentences are somewhat awkward, but I don't see any reason why they would be deemed ungrammatical.

 

[Tarheel]

I would say they are awkward and definitely ungrammatical.

For the first one, try:

He's interrogating somebody to establish what happened last night.

For the second one, try:

He's being interviewed by the police. They want to get to the bottom of things.

(For this "who's" you need the contraction.)

 

[tedmc]

It is not clear whom the writer is referring to - the interviewer or the interviewee.

 

[Piscean]

I agree with ted. "He is someone interrogating whom" is especially unclear, If you wanted to keep the general idea of the sentence, you could say:

He is someone the interrogation of whom is necessary to establish what happened that night, though that is formal and stilted.

Interrogating him is necessary to establish what happened that night is a little more straightforward.

The simplest way, though it drops the constrictions you are trying to use, is perhaps It is necessary to interrogate him to establish what happened that night.

 

[emsr2d2]

(For this "who's" you need the contraction.)

That's not right. In the original, "whose" is correct. If you expand "who's" to "who is" or "who has" (the only two possible meanings of "who's"), you'll see that they lead to ungrammatical sentences.

Sentence 2 is very unnatural. If I really wanted to use "whose", I'd say "He's someone whose interview [answers] will [help] establish ...".

 

[Tarheel]

@emsr2d2
He's someone who's being interviewed - He is someone who is being interviewed.

How is "whose" better here?

 

[emsr2d2]

@emsr2d2
He's someone who's being interviewed - He is someone who is being interviewed.

How is "whose" better here?

You've totally reworded sentence 2. I said that if you replaced "whose" with "who is" or "who has" in the original sentence, it would be ungrammatical.

 

[Tarheel]

You've totally reworded sentence 2. I said that if you replaced "whose" with "who is" or "who has" in the original sentence, it would be ungrammatical.

In my opinion it's totally ungrammatical any way you slice it.

 

[Piscean]

It's cumbersome, but it's not ungrammatical. Who's in the original sentence is wrong, as emsr2d2 explained.