The Grammar of English Grammars, page 738 by Gould Brown
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/em> appears to be used both adjectively and relatively. There are instances, however, in which the relation of this term is not twofold, but simple: as, "Whatever useful or engaging endowments we possess, virtue is requisite in order to their shining with proper lustre."--English Reader, p. 23. Here whatever is simply an adjective. "The declarations contained in them [the Scriptures] rest on the authority of God _himself_; and there can be no appeal from them to any other authority whatsoever."--London Epistle, 1836. Here whatsoever may be parsed either as an adjective relating to authority, or as an emphatic pronoun in apposition with its noun, like himself in the preceding clause. In this general explanatory sense, whatsoever may be applied to persons as well as to things; as, "I should be sorry if it entered into the imagination of any person whatsoever, that I was preferred to all other patrons."--_Duncan's Cicero_, p. 11. Here the word whomsoever might have been used.
OBS. 13.--But there is an other construction to be here explained, in which whatever or whatsoever appears to be a double relative, or a term which includes both antecedent and relative; as, "Whatever purifies, fortifies also the heart."--English Reader, p. 23. That is. "_All that purifies_--or, Everything which purifies--fortifies also the heart." "Whatsoever he doeth, shall prosper."--_Psal._, i, 3. That is, "All that he doeth--or, _All the things which he doeth_--shall prosper." This construction, however, may be supposed elliptical. The Latin expression is, "_Omnia quæcumque faciet prosperabuntur_."--Vulgate. The Greek is similar: [Greek: "Kai panta hosa an poiæi kateuodothæsetai."]-- Septuagint. It is doubtless by some sort of ellipsis which familiarity of use inclines us to overlook, that _what, whatever_, and whatsoever < previous next >