Relative
pronouns and clauses
Introduction
to relative clauses
Suppose you want
to write a paragraph like this:
The house we moved
into is absolutely beautiful. The people who lived here before us took very great
care of it. The garden, which is quite small, is lovely. I'm glad we moved. I
don't think we'll ever regret the decision we made.
If we want to
speak or write like this, we have to master relative clauses. We
introduce relative clauses with these relative pronouns: who, who(m), which,
that and whose.
'Who', 'which' and
'that' as subjects of a relative clause:
1) We use who or that to refer to people.
We use them in place of noun subjects or pronoun subjects (I, you, he, etc.)
and we cannot omit them.
They do not change
when they refer to masculine, feminine, singular or plural:
He is the man/She
is the woman who/that lives here. (Not 'He is the man who he ... *)
They are the
men/the women who/that live here. (Not *They are the men who they ...
*)
2) We use which or
that (in place of noun subjects and it) to refer to animals and
things:
That's the cat
which/that lives next door. Those are the cats which/that live next door.
Here is a photo
which/that shows my car. Here are some photos which/that show my car.
Write: Join these
sentences using who or which. (All of them will also join with that.)
1) He's the accountant. He does my
accounts…..
…..
He's the accountant who does my accounts…
2) She's the nurse. She looked after me. ...................................................................................
3) They're the postcards. They arrived
yesterday…
..................................................................................
4) They're the secretaries. They work in our
office…
................................................................................
5) That's the magazine. It arrived this
morning. ...................................................................................
6) They're the workmen. They repaired our roof.
....................................................................................
‘Who
(m)', 'which' and 'that' as objects of a relative clause
1) We use who (m)
or that to refer to people. We use them in place of noun objects or
object pronouns (me, you, him, etc.). We often say who instead of
whom when we speak.
They do not change when they refer
to masculine, feminine, singular or plural:
He's the man/She's
the woman who (m)/that I met. (Not 'He's the man that I met him. *)
They're the
men/women who (m)/that I met. (Not 'They are the men that I met them.
*)
However, we usually omit who (m)
and that. We say:
He's the man/She is
the woman I met. They're the men/they're the women I met.
2) We use which or
that (in place of noun objects or it) to refer to animals and
things:
That's the cat
which/that I photographed. Those are the cats which/that I photographed.
That's the photo
which/that I took. Those are the photos which/that I took.
However, we usually omit which and
that. We say:
That's the cat I
photographed. Those are the cats I photographed.
That's the photo I
took. Those are the photos I took.
Write: Join these
sentences with who(m), which or nothing. (All of them will join with that.)
1)
He's the accountant. You recommended him to me….
….
He's the accountant you recommended…
2)
She's the nurse. I saw her at the hospital.
........................................................................................
3)
They're the postcards. I sent them from Spain.
................................................................................
4)
They're the secretaries. Mr Pym employed them.
............................................................................
5)
That's the magazine. I got it for you yesterday.
................................................................................
6)
They're the workmen. I paid them for the job.
...................................................................................
7)
That's the dog! I saw it at the dog show last week.
...........................................................................
8)
They're the birds. I fed them this
morning.
........................................................................................
‘Who
(m)', 'which' or 'that' as the objects of prepositions
The position of
prepositions in relative clauses is very important. We can say:
1)
He is the person
to whom I wrote. (Never
'to who) (very formal)
This is the pan
in which I boiled the milk. (very formal)
2)
He is the person who (m) I wrote to.
This is the pan which I boiled the milk in.
3)
However, we usually prefer to omit the
relative and say:
He
is the person I wrote to. This is the pan I boiled the milk in.
Example: Joining pair of
sentence in three different ways.
He's the man. I sent the money to
him.
a)
He’s the man to
whom I sent the money.
b)
He’s the man who (m)
I sent the money to.
c)
He’s the man I
sent the money to.
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