"abuse of which he was subjected" or "to which..."?

I am writing a paper and I can't figure out which of these is correct:

"...the neglect and abuse of which he was subjected..."

or

"...the neglect and abuse to which he was subjected..."

The second sounds a little less weird, but I would appreciate any help you guys might be able to provide.

Solution 1:

Welcome to EL&U. The second one is correct. When someone is the subject of something we say that he is subjected to it or that he is the subject of it. Both terms are used but

...the neglect and abuse of which he was subjected...

mixes up the two ways of expressing the idea.

You can say:

He was the subject of much abuse

He was made the subject of much abuse

or

He was subjected to much abuse

or even

He was subject to much abuse

But you cannot say

He was subjected of much abuse

The reason for this is that in

He was (made) the subject of much abuse

the word subject is a noun and the phrase of much abuse is an adjectival phrase modifying subject but in

he was subjected to much abuse and he was subject to much abuse

subjected to and subject to are tenses of the transitive phrasal verb to subject to and the word abuse is the object of that verb.

The easiest way to tell the difference is that the noun takes an article (a or the) but the verb does not.

For a definition of the noun see here and of the verb see here

Note that in the first definition of the noun Merriam Webster use the verb as part of the definition!