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i. Whoever plays, is good.

ii. Whoever plays, he is good.

iii. Whoever plays, they are good.

According to my understanding, the 1st is grammatical. 'Whoever' is the subject of the 1st verb as well as the 2nd verb. Even Grammarly says this while I am writing the question. I also found this sentence:

Whoever gets the most votes will become the next president.

Here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-life-hacks/writing/difference-whomever-vs-whoever#:~:text=How%20to%20use%20%E2%80%9Cwhoever%E2%80%9D,doing%20or%20performing%20an%20action.

But I've seen some people using an extra pronoun (he/they) as I've mentioned.

I think using this extra pronoun is not grammatical.

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  • 1
    Asking "is this correct?" is considered proofreading and off-topic here.
    – Astralbee
    May 10 at 7:53
  • My question is about the above image: It says the word 'Learners'... doesn't a learner ask a question? If a question is asked using "Is this right? or so" it is regarded as 'proofreading/ off-topic' on this forum. My question is: what else would a learner do but ask a question "to learn"
    – xeesid
    May 10 at 9:34
  • If you have a question, where is the question mark in your post?
    – Astralbee
    May 10 at 9:48
  • After your comment I edited it.
    – xeesid
    May 10 at 9:57
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    What are your example sentences supposed to mean? The way you have it means "Everybody who ever plays is good", which is nonsense. Do you mean "Whoever is playing..."? That means the person who is playing now, rather than every player ever.
    – gotube
    May 10 at 20:08

1 Answer 1

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The phenomenon in ii and iii is called "left dislocation". The clause typically begins with a nominal phrase (in your case, the nominal clause "whoever plays") followed by a comma, and then a subject pronoun begins a main clause (in your case, "he is good" or "they are good"). Language Log discusses the issue and gives the following example:

My father, he's Armenian, and my mother, she's Greek.

By the way, none of your three example sentences contain a relative clause.

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