The Personal Use of Relative which in Shakespearean English: The Relevance of Social and Emotional Factors.

This paper explores Shakespeare's use of wh-relative pronouns with personal antecedents, particularly the personal use of which, which had started to be marginalised before Shakespeare's period and replaced by who and whom. The present survey of Shakespeare's plays reveals a significant fact with relation to the second person pronouns thou and you (including their inflected case forms) as antecedents: which is common with thou but extremely rare with singular you; on the other hand, who(m) shows no preference for either form and occurs with them equally. The association of which with thou and its avoidance of you suggests that Shakespeare may have exploited personal which in contexts where thou is generally preferred - when the speaker is superior in social status to the referent or the speaker is highly emotional. Evidence is presented from close examination of three plays ( Romeo and Juliet, King Richard II, and King Lear), demonstrating that characters of high status may use which if the referents are social inferiors but not vice versa. In addition, personal which is associated with heightened emotion and dramatic tension. In fact, fellow, knave, and similar insulting words are commonly used as antecedents of which. On the other hand, social status or emotional states of characters are not relevant to the use of who(m). Hence in Shakespeare's English, who(m) is the unmarked form as a personal relative pronoun, while which is the marked form, usually used, just like thou, to refer to social inferiors or to mark strong emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]