Non-defining relative clauses: persons A Subject: who

No other pronoun is possible. Note the commas:

My neighbour, who is very pessimistic, says there will be no apples this year.

Peter, who had been driving all day, suggested stopping at the next town.

Clauses such as these, which come immediately after the subject of the main verb, are found mainly in written English. In spoken English we would be more likely to say:

My neighbour is very pessimistic and says...

Peter had been driving all day, so/and he suggested. But clauses placed later in the sentence, i.e. clauses coming after the object of the main verb, are quite common in conversation:

I've invited Ann, who lives in the next flat. Clauses following a preposition + noun are also common:

I passed the letter to Peter, who was sitting beside me.

BObject: whom, who

The pronoun cannot be omitted, whom is the correct form, though who is sometimes used in conversation: Peter, whom everyone suspected, turned out to be innocent. As noted above, a non-defining clause in this position is unusual in spoken English. We would be more likely to say:

Everyone suspected Peter, but he turned out to be innocent. But non-defining clauses coming later in the sentence, i.e. after the object of the main verb or after a preposition + noun, are common in conversation: She wanted Tom, whom she liked, as a partner; but she got Jack,

whom she didn't like.

She introduced me to her husband, whom I hadn 't met before.

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