
  (1) The man from whom I got the pen.
  
  (2) The man from I got the pen.
  
  (3) The man I got the pen from.
  
  (4) The man who(m) I got the pen from.  


Let's start with example (4) because it's the easiest to talk about:


(4) .... the man(i) [whom (i)  I got the pen from ___ (i) ]


The man here is the antecedent for the word who(m).  There is a gap at the end of the clause that represents a missing word after the preposition from. All three parts have the same index, they all refer to the same person. We could represent the relative clause like this:


the man [whom I got the pen from him  ].


Here, the object of the preposition is the word who(m), but whom is at the beginning of the clause. The proposition from has been 'stranded' at the end of the sentence.

If we want to, we can put the whole preposition phrase at the beginning of the clause. This is what happens in example (1):


(1)  ... the man [from whom I got the pen ___ ]. 


If we arrange the sentence like this, the preposition occurs in the normal position before its object whom. We can think about the clause like this:


... the man [from whom I got the pen from him ]. 


Notice that we can only move the preposition so that it comes before its object. Otherwise it must stay in its normal position. In these relative clauses, I is the subject of the clause. Because the relative word who(m) is not the subject, we can drop it. We don't need to use a relative word at all:


(3) ... the man(i) [I got the pen from ____(i) ].


There is still a gap at the end of the sentence, where the object of from is missing. But there is no relative pronoun whom in this sentence. Notice that from must be at the end of the clause in its normal position. We cannot move it so that it comes before its object. This is because the object of the word from is missing! From here occurs before the gap where its object would be. We could represent the clause like this:


(3) ... the man [I got the pen from  him  ].


If we try to move from to  a different position, the clause will be ungrammatical:


(2) *... the man(i) [from I got the pen ___(i) ] (wrong).


Here the word from doesn't appear before its real object - or the gap left from the missing object. If we try to reconstruct the missing parts we have the following representation:


(2) *... the man [from I got the pen him ] (wrong).


This is definitely not a good clause!

Hope this is helpful.

discerning between from whom and from
During these winter months I am currently attending the gym 3 times a week. On each of the days I start my training on an exercise bike with the following:


5 minute warm up
30 minutes, 1 minute hard, 1 minute recovery
5 minute warm down


I am using a specific interval training setting on the bike. I preset the training to level 15, which is a high resistance and as much as I can take.

Hard is a cadence of between 80-90rpm high resistance. Recovery is a cadence of 60prm and the resistance backs off considerably, I imagine to approximately level 7.

My heart rate towards the end of the session reaches 170–190bpm, and I am working flat-out. I turn 30 in March, am 5' 8" and weigh approx 168lbs.

Does this training routine seem sensible for building strength and speed on the mountain? Should I be changing up the training with other types of bike training?

It is also worth noting that after the interval training I perform free weight strength training too.
