Relative clauses

Relative clauses

1. Relative clauses give us more information about someone or something.

2. We can use relative clauses to combine clauses without repeating information.

3. We can use relative clauses to join two English sentences.

4. Defining relative clauses give us essential information – information that tells us who or what we are talking about.

   • If a defining relative clause is removed, the meaning of the sentence changes significantly.
     • A defining relative clause is not separated from the rest of the sentence by commas or parentheses.
   • Examples:
     • The woman who visited me in the hospital was very kind.
     • The umbrella that I bought last week is already broken.
     • The man who stole my backpack has been arrested.
     • The weather that we had this summer was beautiful.

5. A non-defining or non-essential clause gives us more information about the person or thing we are talking about.

   • If a non-defining relative clause is removed from a sentence, we lose some detail, but the overall meaning of the sentence remains the same.
     • Non-defining relative clauses are always set off from the rest of the sentence with commas or parentheses.
   • Examples:
     • The farmer, whose name was Fred, sold us 10 pounds of potatoes.
     • Elephants, which are the largest land mammals, live in herds of 10 or more adults.
     • The author, who graduated from the same university I did, gave a wonderful presentation.
     • My mother, who is 86, lives in Paris.

6. Relative pronouns

   • Who – when we talk about people
     • I told you about the woman who lives next door.
   • Which – when we talk about things or animals
     • Do you see the cat which is lying on the roof?
   • Whose – when we talk about possessions.
     • Do you know the boy whose mother is a nurse?
   • That – when we talk about people, things or animals.
     • I don’t like the table that stands in the kitchen.
   • Whom – when we talk about people (object) or with a preposition – very formal
     • I was invited by the professor whom I met at the conference.

7. Relative adverbs

   • A relative adverb can be used instead of a relative pronoun plus preposition. This often makes the sentence easier to understand.
     • When: refers to a time expression
       • The day when we met him. Summer is the season when I'm happiest.
     • Where: refers to a place.
       • The place where we met him. That's the stadium where Real Madrid play.
     • Why: refers to a reason.
       • The reason why we met him. He didn't explain the reason why he did it.

8. Omitting the relative pronoun

   • We can usually leave out who, which or that if it is followed by a subject.
     • The assistant [that] we met was really kind. (we = subject, can omit that)
   • We can't usually leave it out if it is followed by a verb.
     • The assistant that helped us was really kind. (helped = verb, can't omit that)

9. Prepositions in relative clauses

   • We can use the preposition before the relative pronoun or at the end of the relative clause.
     • Preposition + relative pronoun
       • We just do it in formal language.
         • He wrecked the car for which he had paid a fortune.
         • He was a man for whom everybody had great respect.
     • Preposition at the end of the relative clause
       • The most common position of the preposition is at the end of the relative clause.
         • He wrecked the car (Which / that) he had paid a fortune for.

10. In non-defining relative clauses, we can use of which/whom after a quantifier such as:

    • Some, any, none, all, both, several, enough, many and few.
      • The students, none of whom had failed the exam, were thrilled.
      • Their house was full of cats, most of which had been found in the street.

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