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This message was posted a bit ago on Language Overflow, and proved to be more interesting than usual. I wonder if it's grammatical, strictly speaking.
The "[P]oor them" part is grammatical, since the objective sense is used in these exclamatory constructions. My main issue was with the apposition (i.e. the "who hate chocolates" part).
Is the sentence grammatical? Is the who-clause an appositive?
Poor him.
Poor them.
Lucky you.
All are standalone sentence, and are used for the purpose of exclamation. They are grammatical and correct. The structure is like this
Adjective + Object form of Personal Pronoun
Normally in today's English no relative construction/clause is used as a modifier for that personal pronoun in that construction. In today's English one might write the sentence OP mentioned -
But the main question is - Whether using a modifier in the form of relative clause for that pronoun is really grammatical?
Well, as far as I can say similar construction with relative clause as an apposition or modifier was in use in older usage.
Let's look at these examples -
Happy they who desire no other consolation. (Year: 1829)
[Aside - Why it's they? Probably it's a hyper-correction. To choose between the subject or object form, they choose the subject form over the object form because the who in the relative clause indicates a subject form.]
Happy he who is blest with such a sister! (Year: 1853)
Yet I think such constructions were very few in those days also. One reason I can guess is that this is susceptible to hyper-correction, a writer will have a hard time choosing between the subject form or the object form of the pronoun.
CONCLUSION -
In view of that I wouldn't call OP's example sentence ungrammatical.
All I will do is avoid writing or speaking similar sentence or ask students not to write similar thing. Reconstruct it the other way.
Remember that there are examples that were as grammatical at those times as it's at present time that are not a standalone sentence, but a part of the sentence, those examples that have the similar construction as adjective + personal pronoun.
Just think of poor me who seem to have no reasoning faculty at all in these matters.
But OP is asking only for that construction where it's a standalone sentence.
Poor them, who hate chocolates — this sentence has two distinct parts:
It is a declarative statement (They are poor.ie. pitiable or, simply, hapless depraved souls) ridden of its tensed structure. It is cast in the mould of a free standing accusative pronoun (default case) where a handful of adjectives (lucky/poor/ silly) can qualify pronouns even attributively and the structure now gains in intensity magnifying their utter callousness to chocolates.
The first part should better be regarded as a VPE along with a transformation which requires change of nominative to accusative.
Poor them, who hate chocolates.
The who-clause is not an appositive. An appositive is a description of a noun, that works with the noun. For example:
Chocolates, a sweet delight.
In this case, a sweet delight renames the adjacent noun and so is an appositive.
Poor them, who hate chocolates.
The structure of this sentence can be explained through Subject Complement Agreement
The Subject Complement follows a linking verb. For example:
Poor me, hating chocolate
I am the subject and "chocolate" follows a linking verb (to hate) and so is the subject compliment.
The phrase in question is Subject Complement Agreement
Poor them, who hate chocolates.
Subject Complement Agreement comes into play when plurals are involved, either the subject is plural or the subject compliment is plural or both are plural.
The confusion comes when you apply a plural compliment to a plural subject, do both subjects hate both compliments? Does one subject hate one compliment and vice versa? The answer is that this phrase is acceptable but ambiguous. A better phrase would make it clear exactly which subject hates exactly which complement. For example:
Poor them, who both unanimously hate all chocolates
Poor them, who each hate a specific flavor of chocolate
