Re: Multiple wh-words

Tom Wier et al wrote:

> Ph.D. wrote:
> > I find nothing wrong with "Whom did who see?"  I'm sure I've
> > said that question myself, with an emphasis on "who."
>
> Ah, but there's a catch:  we must distinguish between so-called
> echo-questions and regular wh-questions.  Thus, English is not
> normally considered a wh-in-situ language like Japanese or
> Chinese, but we can get wh-words in situ if they are echo
> questions:
>
> A: "You'll never guess:  of all people, John saw Mary at
>     the library today."
> B: "John saw WHO at the library?!?"
>
> Importantly, without this particular marked kind of discourse,
> the sentence spoken by B, without emphasis, is ungrammatical.
I don't quite agree either, but then I'm one of those who still use
"whom"...
Imagine being confronted by a group of people, known to be couples, but not
so identified, and you want to sort them out: who(m) does who love? with
normal intonation could be a perfectly valid question. (Why...it could be
another TV Reality show, except it would have to be called "Who loves
Who?"--I'm going to copyright this, just in case......;-)

> So, the interesting thing is that in German, even not in echo
> questions, it is according to some native speakers possible to
> say "Wen liebt wer?" ("Whom loves who?").
What is the context in German? My limited experience suggests that most such
questions would be echo/emphatic/contrastive, except possibly in the
situation I devised, or similar.

We can certainly do it with "what"-- e.g. at a potluck supper, we might well
ask "who brought what?"