Re: how to write this?

"Saurav" and I (Mark Brader) wrote:
1. "My subject is M, of which I'm not sure, whether it is a
science." (probably incorrect).

2. "My subject is M, whether which is a science I'm not sure." (too
stilted?)

3. "My subject is M, I'm not sure which is a science." (compound?)

There is really no formally correct way to construct the sort of clause
you're asking about. Example 1 would be acceptable if the punctuation
was corrected (there must *not* be a comma between "I'm not sure" and
the clause saying what you're not sure of), but it's avoiding the problem
in a different way, using a prepositional phrase to join the two parts
instead of a conjunection.

Could you please tell me how ".....is M, of which I'm not sure whether
it is a science" is grammatically correct?

Everything after the comma can be viewed as a parenthetical construct.

Numbers 2 and 3 are wrong.

Is example2 wrong? If so, kindly explain. If there is a cloth, which
he has to put on" is correct, why isn't ex2 correct?

In this sense of "which" it is a relative pronoun: it refers back to
an antecedent but also starts a subordinate clause like a conjunction.
In 2, the clause was already started by "whether".

What you're really asking how to form is this:

"My subject is M, which I'm not sure whether it's a science."

I am very much inclined to believe that this sentence is incorrect,
especially as long as the "which" is there.

It is formally incorrect, but it's also the way a lot of people would
say it.
--
Mark Brader | "Forgive me if I misunderstood myself, but
Toronto | I don't think I was arguing in favour of that..."
msb@xxxxxxx | -- Geoff Butler

My text in this article is in the public domain.
.

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