Timeline for Explain why "Who is she playing the piano?" is incorrect
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
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| Jan 12, 2019 at 0:30 | comment | added | Araucaria - Not here any more. | Nice post. The answer is that, as GB says, pronouns are not easily modifiable, and we can only do so in special situations. | |
| Jan 10, 2019 at 11:15 | history | edited | Mari-Lou A | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jan 10, 2019 at 11:09 | history | edited | Mari-Lou A | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jan 10, 2019 at 5:20 | comment | added | Peter - Reinstate Monica | While what you say is correct (afaics), I think it misses the point. The students don't want to ask with or for who(m) she is playing but they simply substitute "the girl" with "she" because that's normally possible. In fact, this substitution is the function of a personal pronoun. "The girl speaks" -- "she speaks". The OP is asking: Which grammar rule makes this substitution which is normally allowed wrong in this case? (If we suppose it is wrong; some seem to contend that it is just unusual.) | |
| Jan 9, 2019 at 17:58 | comment | added | Will Crawford | @Andrew she is subject, her is [direct or indirect] object (and homonym for the possessive). | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 22:59 | vote | accept | Hojo | ||
| Jan 8, 2019 at 22:59 | |||||
| Jan 8, 2019 at 18:03 | comment | added | J.R.♦ | @Mari-LouA - Spot on – unless you’re a grammar fiend. (In this discussion, I know who I’d want to go have a beer with.) | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 17:32 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | @rexkogitans the vast majority of native speakers, British, Australians and Americans will choose to say "who" | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 14:43 | comment | added | rexkogitans | @J.R. Whom did Paul McCartney play guitar with - not "who" | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 13:55 | comment | added | Keeta - reinstate Monica | -1 I do not consider the use of "whom" to be "very formal" at all. I just consider it to be correct. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 13:25 | comment | added | J.R.♦ | And then there is sentence (e): Who is she playing the piano for? @Tim - No, there needn’t be two at the piano. “Who did Paul McCartney play guitar with?” (Answer: With John, George, and Ringo.) | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 10:08 | comment | added | rexkogitans | I would not suggest using "who" as object for explaining why OP's sentences work. "who" is subject (in some dialects also objects), "whom" is object, and this does not matter here at all. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 9:00 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | @Tim The OP already knows that the "correct" solution is "Who is the girl playing the piano?", so no point in me repeating that. My answer shows (hopefully) how the student's sentence (Who is she playing the piano?) could be made perfectly grammatical. I did, however, also warned that the meaning would change. I'm not saying the meanings are identical to the OP's. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 8:54 | comment | added | Tim | a and b presume two are playing piano, so inaccurate. There's only one female player. c and d also don't ask the proper question - they ask who is listening - the question involves who the player is. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 6:45 | history | wiki removed | Maulik V | ||
| Jan 8, 2019 at 4:59 | comment | added | Andrew | This seems the only accurate answer of the bunch. In the questionable sentence, by default "she" refers to the object, not the subject. It's not ambiguous at all -- it's just weird in the given context. | |
| Jan 8, 2019 at 4:55 | history | edited | Mari-Lou A | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jan 8, 2019 at 4:46 | history | answered | Mari-Lou A | CC BY-SA 4.0 |