Whom & Prepositions in Relative Clauses
Level C1 · Relative Clauses
Some relative clauses need a preposition — the man I spoke to, the reason for which she left — and English gives you two ways to place it: stranded at the end (the everyday, spoken style) or fronted with a formal pronoun (whom/which) right after the noun. Both describe exactly the same relationship; they differ only in register.
The two styles move the preposition to opposite ends of the clause:
- Everyday style: preposition stays at the end, pronoun is often dropped: the man I spoke to; the topic we talked about; the company she works for.
- Formal style: preposition moves to the front, right before whom (people) or which (things) — never before that, and never before who: the man to whom I spoke; the topic about which we talked; the company for which she works.
- whom is the formal object pronoun for people — it replaces who only when who is the object of the clause, most often right after a preposition: the woman whom I met (or, informally, the woman I met, no pronoun needed at all).
whose covers possession for both people and things in formal writing (the book whose cover is torn), while of which is the strictly formal alternative for things: the book, the cover of which is torn. In everyday English, whose alone is by far the more natural choice for things too — of which mostly appears in quite formal or technical writing.
The most common mistake is stranding the preposition after a fronted formal pronoun: the man to who I spoke or the man to whom I spoke to both misfire — a fronted preposition takes whom/which right after it (to whom), and if the pronoun is dropped or that is used, the preposition goes back to the end (I spoke to), never both at once. A second frequent error: using whom as a subject — whom called you? is wrong; a subject always stays who, even formally.
Look for a preposition either stranded at the very end of a clause (the sign of everyday style) or sitting immediately before whom/which (the sign of formal style) — the two never combine — and whose or of which marking possession inside the clause.