that/who/whom

[navi tasan]

Which are correct:

1) There are four people I would like to take care of my father.
2) There are four people that I would like to take care of my father.
3) There are four people who I would like to take care of my father.
4) There are four people whom I would like to take care of my father.

Gratefully,
Navi

 

[tedmc]

I would add a comma after "like".

 

[tedmc]

What about "them" after like?

 

[Rover_KE]

That would also be incorrect.

 

[tedmc]

Wouldn't it be simpler to say:

I would like four people to take care of my father?

 

[Rollercoaster1]

I would say 'I would like these/those four people to take care of my father'.

 

[tedmc]

I would say 'I would like these/those four people to take care of my father'.

The sentence is not complete as a standalone sentence.

 

[Rollercoaster1]

The sentence is not complete as a standalone sentence.

Why do you think it's not a complete sentence?

 

[tedmc]

These/those four people begs the question of who they are. No?

 

[Rollercoaster1]

These/those four people begs the question of who they are. No?

The listener(s) would understand who the speaker is talking about.

 

[Rollercoaster1]

These/those four people begs the question of who they are. No?

If I am not wrong, below are some of the examples of dependent clauses (sentences that can't stand alone).

1- Because she broke his heart
2- After the thieves have robbed the bank
3- Even though he was sad


I can add independent clauses to complete the meanings.

1- Because she broke his heart, he is crying.
2- After the thieves had robbed the bank, the police arrived.
3- Even though he was sad, he smiled.

 

[tedmc]

In life, perhaps. Not in grammar.

That was what I meant - it wouldn't be complete as part of a text, without further elaboration.

 

[tedmc]

We are not talking about a paragraph. We are talking about a sentence. 'I would like these/those four people to take care of my father' is a complete sentence.

'He is dead' is a complete sentence. We may not know who 'he' is, but that is irrelevant to the grammaticality of the sentence.

Is it any better with these/those added as a standalone sentence?

 

[PaulMatthews]

[1] There are four people I would like to take care of my father.
[2] There are four people that I would like to take care of my father.
[3] There are four people who I would like to take care of my father.
[4] There are four people whom I would like to take care of my father.

So I take it that your question is about whether you should use a wh relative clause (who or whom) or a non-wh relative one (that or bare).

There are two considerations:

1. The relativised element (R) is not object of like but subject of the embedded infinitival clause to take care of my father. This rules out [4] which has objective whom.

2. Since R is not subject of the relative clause itself, but of the embedded infinitival clause, that is omissible so the bare relative clause in [1] is allowable.

This means that [1]-[3] are all fine with nothing much to choose between them, though I recall reading that there is a slight preference for who rather than that when R is subject, as it is in [3].

 

[emsr2d2]

The sentence is not complete as a standalone sentence.

I think you're misunderstanding the meaning of "a standalone sentence". It means that the words between the opening capital letter and the closing punctuation mark constitute a grammatical possibility. It has nothing to do with [further] context.

They're all mine. (This is a complete sentence and works as a standalone sentence. It doesn't matter that we don't know what "they" are.)
They're all. (This is not a complete sentence - it is not grammatical regardless of what was said before or after it.)

 

[Phaedrus]

[1] There are four people I would like to take care of my father.
[2] There are four people that I would like to take care of my father.
[3] There are four people who I would like to take care of my father.
[4] There are four people whom I would like to take care of my father.

So I take it that your question is about whether you should use a wh relative clause (who or whom) or a non-wh relative one (that or bare).

There are two considerations:

1. The relativised element (R) is not object of like but subject of the embedded infinitival clause to take care of my father. This rules out [4] which has objective whom.

The relativized element is both the subject of take and the object of like.

Similarly, John fills both of those functions in I would like John to take care of my father.

But we can't say, *[strike]I would like he to take care of my father[/strike] or *[strike]I would like they to take care of my father[/strike].

Instead, objective/accusative case is required. Therefore, whom is permissible in the relative clause.

Technically, who (nominative/subjective case) is incorrect there.

Whom is optional only because most native speakers avoid whom in most contexts or don't understand how to use it to begin with.

Plus, as you say, a that-relative or zero-relative is also perfectly fine there.

 

[Tdol]

Virtually no one would use number four, but I am not sure it's a straight red.

 

[Phaedrus]

Virtually no one would use number four, but I am not sure it's a straight red.

Although virtually no one would use whom there, who is not formally justifiable in that relative clause (see post #22).

 

[Tdol]

Yeahbbut, many would say it. :up:

 

[PaulMatthews]

Which are correct:

1) There are four people I would like to take care of my father. 2) There are four people that I would like to take care of my father.
3) There are four people who I would like to take care of my father. 4) There are four people whom I would like to take care of my father.

Gratefully,
Navi

There are four people who(m) I would like __ [to take care of my father].

There seems to be some confusion about the syntax of your examples [3]-[4]. It is in fact trickier than I explained in my earlier answer.

The bracketed embedded clause is a non-finite one, meaning that this is a complex catenative construction where "like" is a catenative verb with the embedded infinitival clause its catenative complement.

The relativised element, represented by the gap notation '___', is the syntactic object of "like" and the understood (semantic) subject of the embedded infinitival clause. The gap is a 'raised object' in that the verb it relates to syntactically is higher in the constituent structure that the one it relates to semantically.

Since the gap is syntactically the object of "like", strictly speaking the pronoun should be "whom". However, there is a trend nowadays to avoid using accusative "whom" wherever possible, though some people would regard "who" as less than fully acceptable in formal style.

The above is a more accurate account of your wh relative examples than the one I gave earlier.