I have a quick question in this sentence would you use who or whom?
I have expectations of whom you wed
This is not in a story but this is purely for learning the rules of using whom.
-
1The structure doesn’t seem natural to me. I would say “I have expectations about...” rather than “I have expectations of...”—unless you are saying that you will have expectations of that person? In that case, neither “whom” nor “who” would be natural in most dialects of modern English: it would have to be something like “of who(m)ever” or “of the person who(m)”. – herisson Mar 7 '18 at 22:17
Although 'whom' is falling from usage, 'whom' refers to the object, 'who' to the subject.... so you'd say "to whom did you give the money?" or "Who loves you the most?" 'who' goes with 'he' and 'she'. 'whom goes with 'him' and 'her'
I think that the problem here is the word "expectations". It really is not in common use and cannot but remind readers of the Dickens novel, in which expectations refer, in part to a rich inheritance.
If you mean something like "I expect a lot from the person whom you shall wed" then that is grammatically correct, and, yes, "whom" not "who" because the word refers to the person "from..." which can only be "whom". You just cannot say in formal English "...from who..."
That is not to say that you would not hear just those words every day in informal speech.
-
Although I agree that "whom" is correct in "I expect a lot from the person whom you shall wed," I think the reason is that "whom" is the object of the verb "wed". It is not the object of the preposition "from"; the object of "from" is "person". – Andreas Blass Mar 8 '18 at 2:41
