<p>I understand that who is appropriate in place of which when it's being used to modify a person. Is it the case that after who the word will always be a verb? By that taken, is the word, whose, always appropriate for modifying a person as well, but when the word following it would be a noun? I'm trying to think of a way to recognize that whose is appropriate as a possessive word.</p>
<p>This is a pretty tough one to explain, but I’ll give it a shot:</p>
<p>Who is an inquisitive word, as well as a relative pronoun. It’s mostly used in questions (who did this?) or when someone refers to himself(I was the one who did this) </p>
<p>Whose is used possessively. It is also a relative pronoun, but it’s ALWAYS used possessively. (Whose car is this?) </p>
<p>There is no real pattern because these two words are so commonly used, but the main difference between them is that ‘whose’ always refers to a possession.</p>
<p>In addition to what Pjesse said. Who is the subject.</p>
<p>Thank you for the quick feedback! </p>
<p>I think I understand how to use who, and I think I understand that whose is for a possession. I guess I’m just wondering when I’d know that I should be using whose and not who in the middle of a sentence as a relative pronoun.</p>
<p>Two related examples come to mind:</p>
<p>I am the person who likes to</p>
<p>I am the person whose arm is …</p>
<p>I didn’t know if from there it could be generalized that in this type of construction in which whose is not the first word, would a noun always follow whose but a noun would never follow who?</p>
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<p>I think so. I’m not too sure, but I you read the sentence out loud you’ll notice if there’s something wrong. In your second example, notice that ‘whose’ is a term used to claim the ‘arm’ as well as a predicate pronoun (I’ll explain what that neans). In your first example however, ‘who’ is not showing any ownership at all and is only a predicate pronoun. A predicate pronoun is a pronoun (or noun) that comes after the verb but means the same thing as the subject. It’s used to form a complete thought, in a way. </p>
<p>Uhm, did this help? I don want to tell you something that I’m not sure of, so I’m not going to claim that ‘who’ is always followed by a verb or ‘whose’ is always followed by a noun.</p>
<p>Pjesse: Thank you for your explanations. I agree with your take on the subject. I’m also not inclined to generalize about who+verb (or who+not-noun) and whose+noun (or whose+not-verb), although I cannot think of a counterexample.</p>
<p>You’re welcome, and neither can I which is why I didn’t give you a straight answer. </p>
<p>PJ</p>