Whose Usage

[A.Kiran]

I am having troubling with the word " WHOSE"

what " whose " mean ? and how it is used or when it should be use ?


can any one tell me .


For example :

As a result, presidential elections have become referendum on the business cycle, whose fortuitous turnings are
erroneously attributed to the President. Presidents are properly.

In this sentence whose is referring to the Business Cycle or the REFERENDUM ?

by the way this is sentence is from here : https://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/GRE/pdf/6398_verbal.pdf

( second question ) .


Thanks

[sunnyjohn]

Business cycle

refer to previous referable noun.

[Stuart@KaplanGMAT]

"Whose" is a possessive pronoun that can only refer to a person (or people).

Here are some examples of proper use:

The person whose car I'm driving is away on vacation.

I'm house sitting for my cousin Vinny, whose television is broken.

Last month I saw a movie about 8 coal miners from Virginia, whose lives are very interesting.

[A.Kiran]

Hi Staurt.

I have read on the google search ( in Grammar girl website ) stating that Whose can be used for the non living things as well.

Is this correct ?

and in the above sentence( i posted earlier ) the sentence WHOSE is referring to what?


thanks
Kiran

[Stuart@KaplanGMAT]

Hi Staurt.

I have read on the google search ( in Grammar girl website ) stating that Whose can be used for the non living things as well.

Is this correct ?

and in the above sentence( i posted earlier ) the sentence WHOSE is referring to what?


thanks
Kiran

On the GMAT, whose will usually refer to living things (most likely people, since an animal is usually a "what", not a "who").

In the sentence you posted above, since whose can only refer to people, it automatically refers to the only person available, the president. Since that makes no sense, the use of "whose" is incorrect.

If we were to accept that whose could also refer to things, then it would refer to the noun just before the comma - the business cycle.

Upon reflection, I might be changing my mind - we would say "the company whose CEO just got fired", since there's no other possessive pronoun we could use instead.

[A.Kiran]

thanks Stuart .