Defining relative clauses

In the sentence:

The woman who lives in that house is French.
(La mujer que vive en aquella casa es francesa.)

The basic sentence is:

The woman is French.
(La mujer es francesa.)

And in order to specify the woman, we include the relative clause "who lives in that house". Who is the relative word; it refers to a person ("the woman") and it is the subject of the verb "lives".

In the sentence:

I liked the film that we saw last week.
(Me gustó la película que vimos la semana pasada.)

The basic sentence is:

I liked the film.
(Me gustó la película.)

And in order to specify the film, we include the relative clause "that we saw last week". That is the relative word; it refers to a thing ("the film") and it is the object of the verb "saw".

There are different relative words for different situations:

Subject of the verb

Object of the verb or preposition

Possessive

Refers to a person

1 who

2 who, that, whom, Ø 1

5 whose

Refers to a thing

3 that, which

4 that, which, Ø 1

1 Ø means that no relative word is one possibility.

Examples of 1 (relative clause in blue; relative word in bold):

The girls who came enjoyed the show.
(Las chicas que vinieron disfrutaron del espectáculo.)Do you know the boywho's playing the drums?
(¿Conoces al chico que toca la batería?)

Example Spanish

The children who I saw were from Scotland.

Los niños que vi eran de Escocia.

The children that I saw were from Scotland.

The children whom I saw were from Scotland.

The children I saw were from Scotland.

Example Spanish

The man who I spoke to was very helpful.

El hombre con quien hablé era muy servicial.

The man that I spoke to was very helpful.

The manI spoke to was very helpful.

Whom is formal; when it is the object of a preposition, we prefer to place the preposition with whom, for example:

The man to whom I spoke was very helpful.
(El hombre con quien hablé era muy servicial.)

Example Spanish

The building that collapsed was very old.

El edificio que se desplomó era muy viejo.

The building which collapsed was very old.

Example Spanish

I like the pictures that she paints.

Me gustan los cuadros que pinta.

I like the pictures which she paints.

I like the picturesshe paints.

I found the ring that I was looking for.

Encontré el anillo que buscaba.

I found the ring which I was looking for.

I found the ringI was looking for.

I spoke to the woman whose daughter won first prize.
(Hablé con la mujer cuya hija ganó el primer premio.) The young man whose picture was in the papers came into the shop.
(El joven que aparecía fotografiado en los periódicos entró en la tienda.)

When the relative refers to a day or other period of time, you will sometimes see the relative word when, e.g.:

Example Spanish

The day when they came was very cold.

El día que vinieron hacía mucho frío.

The day that they came was very cold.

The daythey came was very cold.

Where is also a relative word; it corresponds to a preposition phrase, not a noun phrase. Consider, for example, these sentences:

Example Spanish

This is the house that Shakespeare lived in.

Ésta es la casa donde vivía Shakespeare.

This is the house where Shakespeare lived.

In the first sentence, that refers to "the house", so we need the preposition in, but in the second sentence, where refers to "in that house", so there is no preposition.

Consequently, the following two sentences are wrong:

.

.

As distinct from Spanish, English does not have a subjunctive verb form in relative clauses like the following, e.g.:

We need someone who speaks Chinese.
(Necesitamos a alguien que hable chino.)I'm looking for a hat that matches this dress.
(Busco un sombrero a juego con este vestido.)

See also non-defining relative clauses and sentence relative clause.

Examples of 2 (relative clause inblue; relative word inbold):

Examples of 3 (relative clause inblue; relative word inbold):

Examples of 4 (relative clause inblue; relative word inbold):

Examples of 5 (relative clause inblue; relative word inbold):

	Created by vickivillegas over 10 years ago

	Copied by Fernando Álvarez over 3 years ago

2º de bachillerato Inglés Note on Relative Clauses Apuntes, created by Fernando Álvarez on 08/01/2021.