for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee
For whom, the bell tolls
丧钟为「
谁的」
而鸣？
译者：
徐唱
校对：王乐颖
编辑：王乐颖
In the court of common usage, an old pronoun is losing its case
惯用语中，一个旧式代词正在节节败退
写在前面：因本篇文章涉及较多语法内容，故一些词需保留英文原词，请读者谅解。文中示例的英文句子也将于保留原文后在括号中进行翻译。
LAST week
The Economist
considered the new South African president’s in-tray, advertising our advice on the cover with the words “Who Cyril Ramaphosa should fire”. Some readers might have wondered whether someone should fire our proofreaders. Shouldn’t that be “Whom Cyril Ramaphosa should fire”?
上周，考虑到南非新总统的待办事宜
,
《经济学人》在封面用了以下文字推广本刊的建议：“
Who
Cyril Ramaphosa should fire
”（拉马福萨应该开除
谁
[
主格
who]
）。一些读者看到这个标题可能会觉得，应该派人开除鄙杂志的校对：标题不应该是“
Whom
Cyril Ramaphosa should fire
”
(
拉马福萨应该开除
谁
[
宾格
whom])
吗？
It wasn’t a
cock-up
. On its face, our editors agreed, the grammar was clear. It should be
whom
.
Who
is used for subjects,
whom
for objects, including direct objects such as that of the verb
to fire
. “He fires him”, not “He fires he”. Thus, “He fires whom”.
其实这并不是个
失误
。从表面上来说，我们的编辑都同意，语法结构很清晰，应该用
whom
。
Who
用于指代主语，
whom
用于指代宾语——包括动词“开除”后跟的直接宾语。“
He fires
him
，”（他开除他
[
宾格
him]
）而不是“
he fires
he
”（他开除他
[
主格
he]
）。所以，应该是“
He fires
whom
”（他开除谁
[
宾格
whom]
）。
Cock-up
something that has been spoiled by someone’s stupid mistake or by being done badly
混乱，一团糟（口语，不正式）
The issue is not as simple as that.
Whom
is one of the few remaining
vestiges
of case in English. At the time of “Beowulf”, the great monster-slaying Anglo- Saxon epic, English nouns, pronouns and adjectives, plus words like
the
, all had an ending showing case. Four different cases in Old English tell you whether a word is a subject, direct object, indirect object or possessor. Other languages, from Ancient Greek to Russian to Estonian, have far richer
case
systems still.
但这个问题并不像表面上看起来的那么简单。
Whom
是英语中为数不多
残存
的语义格之一。在盎格鲁
-
撒克逊
*
英雄叙事巨作——《贝奥武夫》
*
的时代，英文的名词、代词、形容词、还有像
the
一样的单词，都具有表现“格”的结尾。古英语中有四种不同的语义格告诉你这个词是主语、直接宾语、间接宾语，还是所有格。至今，古希腊语、俄语、爱沙尼亚语等其他语言仍留存着更为丰富的
语义格
系统。
译者注：
*
盎格鲁
-
撒克逊（
Anglo-Saxon
）
是个统称，通常用来形容
5
世纪初到
1066
年诺曼征服之间，生活于大不列颠东部和南部地区，语言和种族相近的民族。
*
《贝奥武夫》是有记载的最早的一部英国文学作品。
Vestige
['vestɪdʒ]
：
a small part or amount of something that remains when most of it no longer exists
痕迹，遗迹；残余
Case
[keɪs]: the way in which the form of a word changes, showing its relationship to other words in a sentence
格（语法）动词变位
More than 1,000 years later, that system has vanished almost entirely—probably fatally weakened by foreign invaders. When foreign speakers learn a second language, as the Vikings and then the Normans did when they conquered England, cases are tricky to pick up, as any student of Russian knows. If they can be
dispensed
with, they often will be. Those Vikings and Normans feebly learning Old English helped turn it into Middle English, in which case was far less often visible.
1000
多年之后，这个体系几乎完全消失了。最致命的打击可能是外来入侵者带来的。像外国人学习第二语言时（如同维京人及随后的诺曼人占据英国时那样），语义格相当难以习得。任何学习俄语的人都会理解这种困难。如果可以
避免
使用语义格，他们常常会这么做。也正是这些无力学习古英语的维京人和诺曼人为古英语转换到中古英语提供了一臂之力。在中古英语中，语义格少见了许多。
dispense
/dɪˈspɛns/ V-T If someone dispenses something that they own or control, they give or provide it to a number of people.
分发
Yet fans of
whom
might ask, how can you dispense with case without throwing out
intelligibility
? It’s important to know what word in a sentence is the subject, which the direct object, and so on. That is true—so true that every language on Earth has a way of solving the problem, whether it has cases or not. In English and other case-poor languages, from Swedish to Vietnamese, the solution is word order.
然而，
whom
的粉丝们或许会问，怎么在不牺牲
理解
语义的情况下抛弃语义格呢？了解一句话中什么词是主语，什么词是直接宾语等等是很重要的。这当然是对的——正因如此，无论有没有语义格，地球上每一种语言都有办法解决这个问题。在英语和其他缺少语义格的语言（从瑞典语到越南语）中，词序就是它们的解决办法。
intelligibility
[ɪn,telɪdʒɪ'bɪlɪtɪ] n. the quality of language that is comprehensible
理解
In Old English, Latin or Russian subjects, objects and other words can appear in different orders; this gives speakers and writers a way to play with rhythm and emphasis. The loss of case in modern English means that word order must be relatively fixed, usually subject, verb and object in that sequence.
Steve loves Sally
means that Steve is the lover, Sally the loved. This could be reversed in Old English, with the meaning unchanged, because the case-endings would show who loved whom.
在古英语、拉丁语、或是俄语中，主语、宾语和其他词可以在任何位置出现；这让说话者和写作者一种方法来操纵韵律和强调。现代英语缺少语义格，这意味着词序必须相对固定：通常是主语，动词，然后宾语这样的顺序。“
Steve loves Sally
”（
Steve
爱
Sally
）意味着
Steve
是那个施予爱的人，而
Sally
是接受爱的人。在古英语中，这句话可以倒着写，但是不改变意义——因为语义格结尾的变格将告诉读者谁
(who)
爱谁
(whom)
。
In English today just six words still show a distinction between subject and object:
I
,
he
,
she
,
we
,
they
and
who
. For the first five, making the case-distinction is mandatory nearly all of the time. You cannot say “I love she and she loves I”. Admittedly, some people say “between you and I”. (It should be
between you and me
, because both
you
and
me
are objects of the preposition.) But this is a
marginal
mistake, made mostly by educated people taking to excess the childhood lesson not to say “you and me” in sentences such as “you and me are going to be friends.” Regardless, that children say “you and me are going” and grown-ups say “between you and I”, and both are perfectly understood, illustrates the point: case just isn’t important to meaning in English.
在当今英语中，只有
6
个词保留着主语和宾语之间的区别
: I, he, she, we, they, who.
前面五个来说，几乎所有情况下变格都是必须的。你不能说“
I love she and she loves I.
”
（我爱她
[
主格
she]
，她爱我
[
主格
I]
）当然，有些人会说“
between you and I
”（你和我之间；英语应该是
between you and me
，因为
you
和
me
都是介词
between
的宾语）。但这
不
是个
严重
的错误，大部分是那些受过教育的人犯的错——他们在孩童时代时避免在类似“
you and me are going to be friends
”（你和我
[
宾格
me]
将成为朋友
,
译者注：应该是
you and I
）的句子中说“
you and me
”。但无论如何，小孩说的“
you and me are going
”和成人说的“
between you and I
”都可以被听的人完全理解。这也说明了之前那个问题：在英语中，语义格对于句子意思的理解没那么重要。
Marginal
['mɑːdʒɪn(ə)l]
：
a marginal change or difference is too small to be important
小的，微不足道的，不重要的
Whom
is special. It isused in questions and relative clauses, which are rarer and more complex than “he saw him” type sentences. It is not always obvious whether the relevant word is a subject or an object, as in sentences such as, “He’s the candidate who(m) we think will win”. (It should be
who
.) Perhaps because these sentences are tricky, and swapping
who
and
whom
rarely causes confusion, the two words have been collapsing into just one combined form:
who
, which is used, just like
you
, as both subject and object.
Whom
是特别的。它出现在疑问句和关系关系从句中。这两种句子比起“
he saw him
”（他看他）这类句子更加少见且复杂。在类似于“
He’s the candidate who(m) we think will win
”（他是那个我们觉得会赢的候选人）的句子中，我们并不能常常一眼看出相关的词是主语还是宾语（在这里应该用
who
）。或许是因为这类句子很刁钻，且混用
who
和
whom
几乎不会造成理解困难，这两个词才合二为一，变成
who
——像
you
一样被同时用于主语和宾语。
Whom
