Grammar question: "which person" vs. "who"

Language English Grammar & Usage
1

Is "Which person is the tallest in your family?" correct or incorrect?

  • Correct
  • Incorrect

0 voters

A test gives the following instructions:

Write the questions. Use Which or Who and the superlative form of the adjective.

Question:
person / in your family (tall)

Student Answer:
Which person is the tallest in your family?

Would you mark this correct or incorrect?

Obviously the question is expecting the answer “Who is the tallest person in your family?” But is the above answer incorrect?

2

‘Which’ should be used to choose from a set of options. Since a family is a closed set, with limited options, it’s perfectly acceptable to ask which person is the tallest.

3

Er, I’ve just realised that you can’t ask who is the superlative of anything without specifying the set to which it belongs. Please ignore anything else I might say.