science

Inanimate whose

Inanimate whose is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Inanimate whose rather than just read about it. In short: The inanimate whose refers to the use in English of the relative pronoun whose with non-personal antecedents, as in: "That's the car whose alarm keeps waking us up at night." The construction is also known as the whose inanimate, non-personal whose, and neuter whose. The use of the inanimate whose dates from the 15th century, but since the 18th century has drawn criticism from those who consider whose to be the geni…

Key takeaways

Inanimate whose belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Inanimate whose to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Inanimate whose from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The inanimate whose refers to the use in English of the relative pronoun whose with non-personal antecedents, as in: "That's the car whose alarm keeps waking us up at night." The construction is also known as the whose inanimate, non-personal whose, and neuter whose. The use of the inanimate whose dates from the 15th century, but since the 18th century has drawn criticism from those who consider whose to be the genitive (possessive) only of the relative pronoun who and therefore believe it should be restricted to personal antecedents. Critics of inanimate whose prefer constructions such as those using of which the, which others find clumsy or overly formal.

Usage Users of the inanimate whose employ it as a relative pronoun with non-personal antecedents, as in:

"That's the car whose alarm keeps waking us up at night." Those who avoid using whose with non-personal antecedents assert that it is the genitive (possessive) of only the relative pronoun who. They employ alternatives such as of which the, as in:

"That's the car of which the alarm keeps waking us up at night." or "That's the car the alarm of which keeps waking us up at night." Those who object to this use of of which the find it clunky or overly formal. In some dialects, thats has developed as a colloquial genitive relative pronoun for non-personal antecedents, as in:

"That's the car thats alarm keeps waking us up at night." The inanimate whose is restricted to the relative pronoun. English speakers do not use whose as a non-personal interrogative possessive: the whose in "Whose car is this?" can refer only to a person.

Etymology and history

The Old English genitive of the neuter pronoun hwæt ('what') was hwæs, which later evolved as whose into the genitive of which. The first recorded instance of inanimate relative whose occurs in 1479, about 50 years after the first example of relative who. There is not a great deal of data for the preceding centuries, so it is difficult to pin down its evolution. Attested usage is common in Early Modern English, with inanimate whose appearing repeatedly in the works of Shakespeare, in the King James Bible, and in the writings of Milton and others. Old English had grammatical gender, and pronouns agreed with the grammatical gender of the nouns they referred to, regardless of the noun's innate gender. For example, the Old English wīf ('wife') was neuter and referred to with the pronoun hit ('it'), and wīfmann ('woman') was masculine and referred to with the pronoun hē ('he'). English lost grammatical gender during the late Middle Ages, and the pronouns he and she came to refer to animate subjects of male (or indeterminate) and female biological gender, and it came to refer to inanimate subjects. The American philologist George Perkins Marsh posited that this animate–inanimate distinction led to an eventual discomfort with using whose to refer to both. In contrast, Richard Hogg speculates that causality is the other way around.

Grammars and style guides

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Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Inanimate whose

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Inanimate whose claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Inanimate whose before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Inanimate whose ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Inanimate whose

In research: Inanimate whose appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Inanimate whose in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Inanimate whose is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics English grammar, English pronouns, English usage controversies, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Inanimate whose outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Inanimate whose in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Inanimate whose means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Inanimate whose out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Inanimate whose in simple terms?

Why does Inanimate whose matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Inanimate whose?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Inanimate whose.