Any of a class of English words used to introduce questions and relative clauses. The main wh-words are why, who, which, what, where, when, and how.
〔语法〕以wh开头的疑问词和关系词
Example sentencesExamples
As far as I know, every instance of a double-is construction has a plausible (fully grammatical) alternate with an overt wh-word; but the mapping doesn't always work in the other direction.
Wh-questions, for example, are analyzed as having the wh-word in situ.
Haj Ross named this process ‘pied piping’, conjuring an image of the wh-word luring the preposition out of its original position, just as the Pied Piper lured the rats and children out of Hamelin.
McGreevey's use was just that adjacency to a preposition seems to make the insertion of whom somewhat more likely, presumably because in many cases, the wh-word would really be the object of the preposition.
Definition of wh-word in US English:
wh-word
nounwɜːrd
Grammar
Any of a class of English words used to introduce questions and relative clauses. The main wh-words are why, who, which, what, where, when, and how.
〔语法〕以wh开头的疑问词和关系词
Example sentencesExamples
McGreevey's use was just that adjacency to a preposition seems to make the insertion of whom somewhat more likely, presumably because in many cases, the wh-word would really be the object of the preposition.
Wh-questions, for example, are analyzed as having the wh-word in situ.
Haj Ross named this process ‘pied piping’, conjuring an image of the wh-word luring the preposition out of its original position, just as the Pied Piper lured the rats and children out of Hamelin.
As far as I know, every instance of a double-is construction has a plausible (fully grammatical) alternate with an overt wh-word; but the mapping doesn't always work in the other direction.