The electronic structure of some poly(phenylenevinylene)s have been investigated by resonant and nonresonant x-ray inelastic scattering spectroscopies. The nonresonant as well as all resonant spectra for each polymer demonstrate benzene-like features, indicating a local character of the x-ray emission in which the phenyl ring acts as a building block. Theoretical simulations of x-ray energies and intensities taking the repeat unit as a model molecule of the polymer agree with the experimental spectra fairly well. The edges of the occupied bands have been identified in the nonresonant spectra of each polymer. By subtracting the emission energy of the highest occupied molecular orbital in the nonresonant spectrum from the core excitation energy in the resonant spectrum an alternative way to determine the optical band gap is obtained. As for free benzene the outer pi band in the polymer spectra show a depletion of the emission going from the nonresonant to the resonant x-ray emission spectra. It is demonstrated that this transition, which is strictly symmetry forbidden for free benzene, becomes effectively forbidden in the polymer case as a result of strong interference effects, and it is argued that this is the general case for resonant x-ray emission of conjugated polymers as far as the frozen orbital approximation holds.