Today we’ll be talking about relative pronouns. They are used to connect a relative clause to the main clause in the sentence. It’s a broad topic, so we’ll continue our discussion of them in a couple following articles. Today we’ll just be talking about the basics.
Table of Contents
Restrictive and Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses
Actually, there are two types of relative clauses, restrictive clauses and non-restrictive clauses.
Restrictive clauses are clauses that we use to clarify the antecedent. They give us some essential information about it and as such are indispensible in the sentence. Here’s an example.
I know a man who can speak this language.
Without the information delivered by the relative clause the sentence wouldn’t make sense.
Non-restrictive clauses are clauses that give us some additional information that is not necessary for the sentence to make sense. They are often separated by commas from the rest of the sentence. Here’s an example:
The tall building on Green Street, which you told me about, is still not finished.
Here the relative clause gives us some information which is not essential for the sentence. If we removed it, we would still have a complete sentence:
The tall building on Green Street is still not finished.
Roles of Relative Pronouns
Relative pronouns may function as the subject, object or possessive determiner. Here you can see it as the subject:
The man who is laughing all the time can speak many languages.
Here the relative pronoun functions as the object:
The building which you told me about is going to look great.
And here it’s used as a possessive determiner:
The man, whose name I always forget, is very famous in his country.
Commonly and Less Commonly Used Pronouns
There are a couple relative pronouns that are used a lot and some more that are used a little less frequently. Let’s have a look at the former first.
Here belong: that, which, who, whom and whose.
The less commonly used pronouns include: where, when, whatever, whatsoever, whoever, whosoever, whomever, whomsoever, whichever, whichsoever, wherever, wheresoever. The ones with ‘-so-‘ inside are considered obsolete, you may come across them in older, formal or literary texts.
And now let’s have a look at some examples with pronouns that function as the subject, object or possessive determiner.
Relative Pronouns Functioning as the Subject
Here are some examples with pronouns that function as the subject:
The car that broke down was new.
The driver who was driving my car on that day almost died in the crash.
I hadn’t insured the car, which made my wife furious.
I want to buy a car that never breaks.
The accident wasn’t the driver’s fault. Whoever did it will be punished.
Relative Pronouns Functioning as the Object
And here are some examples with relative pronouns that function as the object:
I want to buy the building that you showed me.
The criminal whom they just arrested was going to work here.
Whatever you heard, it can’t be true.
You can marry whoever / whomever you want.
There are still some free office rooms. Take whichever you need.
Relative Pronouns Functioning as the Possessive Determiner
And finally some examples with relative pronouns that function as the possessive determiner. Actually, the only pronoun that can function as a possessive determiner is whose. Have a look:
The workers whose salaries hadn’t been raised went on strike.
Do you know the girl whose dog bit my nephew?
She married a man whose daughter is her age.
As mentioned before, there’s much more to relative pronouns than has been covered here, so stay tuned. In the following articles we’ll be talking about the following:
– substituting relative pronouns,
– restrictive vs non-restrictive relative clauses,
– relative pronouns as objects of prepositions,
– when and where used as relative pronouns
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