Quem

[Hawkwood]

Quem lulius verberat?
Whom is Julius punishing?

Quem = accusative masculine.
So the question above has already established the gender of the accusative. Like saying whom (out of the boys/men) is being punished?
And if this is the case, then how would you say "whom" if, as the person asking the question you have a choice of people of both genders. Hope this makes sense. Thanks.

 

[Pacifica]

It would still be quem. The masculine is the default gender whenever the gender of a person is not known (and also when referring to a group of people made up of both men and women; you use the masculine plural then).

 

[Imber Ranae]

As a pronoun quem can refer to either gender, actually, just like quis.

 

[Pacifica]

Normal, since it's the accusative of quis, besides being that of qui.

Quis has no feminine by its very nature, because you most of the time don't know the gender of "who?" and the masculine is the default gender.

Edit: By the way, verberare is more like "to beat" than "to punish".

 

[Hawkwood]

It would still be quem. The masculine is the default gender whenever the gender of a person is not known (and also when referring to a group of people made up of both men and women; you use the masculine plural then).

Thanks, this has been bugging me. I knew something wasn't right as the examples are inconsistent & bias to masculine. Now I know why.
I know I've said this before but it's one of the pitfalls of the Orberg method, as it can tend to leave you slightly in the dark (grammatically speaking) as emphasis is geared to repetition & reading, early on anyway.

Quis has no feminine by its very nature, because you most of the time don't know the gender of "who?"

This is exactly what was stumping me.