The pronouns who, whom, whose in 2.18: TODO in the guideline

Gist. In 2.18 PRON.md does not yet have a decision on the case of who pronouns: there are two TODOs. The first is to mark the case of whom(ever) and lemmatize whom as who. The second is to add whose Poss=Yes and possibly Case=Gen. The EWT 2.18 data already partly fulfil the second TODO (Poss=Yes), but not the first. After 2.18 the guideline was completed: who, whom, whose: case and the lemma who (English).

2.18 guideline.

• 2.18:docs/_en/pos/PRON.md:48: «PronType is the only feature except where shown below»;
• :52: who, whom — WP; whoever, whosoever, whomever — WP; whose — WP$;
• :66: «TODO: tag whom(ever) for case; lemmatize whom as who and whomever as whoever»;
• :68: «TODO: add Poss=Yes and possibly Case=Gen for whose»;
• :60: whosoever has Style=Form. But in the validator registry for en the Style values are only Arch, Coll, Expr, Slng, Vrnc, so the validator will not accept Style=Form. EWT has no whosoever.

EWT 2.18 data (engine and grep):

• who: 421 (Rel 361, Int 60), without Case;
• whom: 23 with lemma whom (Rel 20, Int 3), without Case; whomever: 1 with lemma whomever;
• whose: 13, all Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel, without Case=Gen;
• in total who, whom, whoever, whomever without Case — 447 of 447.

Other 2.18 treebanks. The lemma who for whom is already written by GUM (16), GENTLE (6), LinES (15) and ParTUT (4). EWT, PUD and LittlePrince keep the lemma whom. No English treebank writes Case on who pronouns.

Where the discrepancy comes from. The 2.18 guideline acknowledged an open question (TODO, see #517 «Lemmas of English personal pronouns», closed 19.11.2025). EWT 2.18 reflects the state before the decision.

Sources. 2.18:docs/_en/pos/PRON.md; tools/data/feats.json (en, Style); issue #517; seeds Interrogative and relative pronouns: who, whom, whose, which, what, that (en.morph.whom-acc), who, whom, whose, which: case and person; report morph.md.

rule: ud218.whom-lemma
what: whom/whomever with its own lemma — the 2.18 TODO advises the lemma who/whoever
match: w[upos=PRON, form=whom|whomever]
require: w[lemma=who|whoever]
severity: warn
source: UD 2.18 docs/_en/pos/PRON.md:66

rule: ud218.who-case
what: who pronoun without Case — 2.18 TODO
match: w[upos=PRON, form=who|whom|whoever|whomever]
require: w[feats.Case]
severity: warn
source: UD 2.18 docs/_en/pos/PRON.md:66

rule: ud218.whose-poss
what: whose with Poss=Yes — 2.18 TODO, already present in the data
match: w[upos=PRON, form=whose]
require: w[feats.Poss=Yes]
severity: warn
source: UD 2.18 docs/_en/pos/PRON.md:68

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/dialects/ud-2.18/seeds/wh-pronouns/