In a comment, I've read 「目が見えないのは誰ですか」.

I remember that, some 10 years ago, I was told that "の" could not replace
human beings. But here, since we use 誰, it's clearly a person that の refers
to.

Is my memory failing, or is the above sentence casual but not correct, so to
speak?
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2011-10-24T05:00:53.830
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2011-12-27T17:27:58.053
2011-12-27T17:27:58.053
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question
grammar formal-nouns
の as a substitute for beings
の can be a placeholder for many different things, including people and
abstract concepts. In your sample sentence ("Who can't see?" or "Who is
blind?") it refers to a person, but in other contexts it would refer to
something else.

Note that の is often used to serve a similar function as こと, although you
_cannot_ use こと as a placeholder for a person. In other words, 「目が見えないことは誰ですか」
would be grammatically incorrect. However, you _could_ say both
「目が見えないのは難しいですか」 and 「目が見えないことは難しいですか」 ("Is it hard to be blind?"), with the
difference being that the former emphasizes personal experience and the latter
emphasizes the abstract concept of being unable to see.

Anyway, to answer your question directly, 「目が見えないのは誰ですか」 is grammatically
correct and sounds perfectly fine to me if you're trying to pick someone out
of a crowd. I'm not aware of any particular rule against using の as a
placeholder for a person. You could always use 「目が見えない方は誰ですか」 if you want to
be more polite, though.
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2011-10-24T06:42:45.170
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2011-10-30T07:25:36.913
2011-10-30T07:25:36.913
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answer