Expert: Alice J. Bogert - 4/14/2007

Question
The following from a GMAT test prep question poses two alternatives.  I think
the original is the best choice.  I am not sure why.  I think it is because
"those" is a demonstrative pronoun modifying "whom we had brought."  
"Them" cannot function as a demonstrative pronoun.  What do you think?

The principal reason for our failure was quite apparent to those whom we had
brought into the venture.

A. to those whom we had brought
B. to them whom we had brought  

Answer
Dear Jim,

I' sorry for the delay; I had a house full of unexpected company over the weekend.  I'm a bit surprised at this query since you expressed dissatisfaction with a prior response and opined it was suggestive of plagiarism. At any rate, I will field your question and provide reasons why I agree with your assessment.  

This is a tough one because the sentence contains two types of pronouns: relative pronouns (who/whom) and demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those).  One way to better analyze it is to break down the sentence into its component parts as follows:

the principal reason (article, adjective, sentence subject)
for our failure (prepositional phrase)
was quite apparent (verb phrase)
to those whom we had brought (prepositional phrase/relative
  or adjective clause)
into the venture (prepositional phrase)

The tricky part is "   to those whom we had brought..."  You could have written "...was quite apparent to them" and ended the sentence in a prepositional phrase with "them" being the object of the prepositional phrase.

However, you wanted to identify the people you were referring to.  You could have written, "...to the people whom we had brought..."  In this case, the relative/adjective clause "whom we had brought" clearly refers to the word "people."  But, to complicate things, you substituted a pronoun for the words "the people."  English requires that we use a demonstrative pronoun (those) to point to or determine the referent for the relative clause.   

Here are two websters that discuss these issues.  See info on relative pronouns and determiners.

http://community-2.webtv.net/solids-boo/Grammar/page15.html#link

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/determiners/determiners.htm

Hope this was helpful.

Take care,

Alice J. Bogert