Two subjects for a single verb

Question

The one who gets first position, for him, there is a reward.

Is this a right sentence? I think it has an issue:

Because "The one" is already present so 'him' is additional. What does this refer to? If we write it like this:

There is a reward for him who...

Where will 'the one' go?

And if we write it this way:

There is a reward for the one who...

Where will 'him' go?

I'm sorry, but the first sentence doesn't make sense. I'm not really sure what you are trying to say here. Perhaps "There will be a reward for the winner" or "The winner will receive a reward" -- "the one who gets first position" sounds very strange and stilted. — Billy Kerr, Jun 26 '22 at 14:18
Does this answer your question? Is it correct English to write "John he is my husband," or, "Mary she went to the store?" — MarcInManhattan, Jun 26 '22 at 14:46

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 23 '21 at 08:14

This is a sentence that has been broken up and rearranged for stylistic and rhetorical reasons. This process is called fronting

As you correctly infer, the un-fronted sentence would be something like:

There is a reward for him who gets first position

If I want to front the relative clause "...who gets first position" I need to add another noun to be relativised, I could use "one" or "person" :

The person who gets first postion, there is a reward for him.

In your actual sentence, the prepositional phrase "for him" has also been fronted.

So the noun "the one" has been added to make a noun phrase for fronting. It wouldn't be present in the unfronted sentence.

Yes. The sentence seems perfectly alright to me, except that I might use stronger punctuation after "position" i.e The one who gets first position; for him, there is a reward. Or if this seems overdoing it, then I would simply leave the comma after "position" and remove the one after "him". The important thing is to create a paused separation of the opening fronted clause - in my view. — WS2, Nov 30 '22 at 10:10

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