Today we’ll be talking about omitting relative pronouns. This is another article in the Relative Pronouns series. If you haven’t read the previous parts, feel free to do so. The other articles that I’ve written so far include: Relative Pronouns in English – Introduction, Substituting Relative Pronouns and Restrictive vs Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses.
Anyway, it’s very common in English to omit relative pronouns. We typically do it in informal context. This can’t be done always, though.
Relative Pronouns As Subjects
If the relative pronoun is the subject of a relative clause, it usually can’t be omitted. Have a look:
The guy who collects stamps has a dog.
You can’t say:
* The guy collects stamps has a dog.
But you can omit the pronoun if it’s followed by the auxiliary verb BE (also in the form HAVE BEEN) plus the present or past participle. If it’s omitted, the auxiliary verb is omitted too. Have a look:
The car that is parked outside my house isn’t mine.
The car parked outside my house isn’t mine.
or
The students who are preparing for the exam can’t go to the party.
The students preparing for the exam can’t go to the party.
or
The child who was/has been kidnapped by the terrorists can’t speak English.
The child kidnapped by the terrorists can’t speak English.
If the relative pronoun functions as a subject, the situations when it can be omitted are actually pretty limited. This is because, apart from some exceptions like the ones shown above, omitting the relative pronoun is restricted to situations where it’s used as an object.
Relative Pronouns As Objects
So, as I just mentioned, we usually only can omit the relative pronoun if it functions as an object. Moreover, it must be in a restrictive relative clause. Have a look at some examples. In each of them we can omit the relative pronoun and the sentence will still be fine.
The painting which you are looking at was painted by a famous artist.
The painting you are looking at was painted by a famous artist.
The car that you wanted to buy was just sold to someone else.
The car you wanted to buy was just sold to someone else.
The teacher whom I met was very nice.
The teacher I met was very nice.
You will normally use the relative pronouns in more formal contexts and omit them in less formal ones. Actually, there are usually a couple of ways you can word the same sentence with a relative clause. We’re going to have a look at these next.
Formal and Informal Context
So, as I just mentioned, we usually use the relative pronoun in more formal contexts and leave them out in less formal ones. Let’s have a look at this rather formal sentence:
The student whom I just met was pretty rude.
To make it a little less formal we can use WHO instead of WHOM:
The student who I just met was pretty rude.
In an informal context we would omit the pronoun altogether:
The student I just met was pretty rude.
There are even more options if there is a preposition. We’re going to talk about relative pronouns as objects of prepositions in the next part of the series, but here’s just an example. The sentences are ordered from most to least formal:
The girl with whom you were dancing is an actress.
The girl whom you were dancing with is an actress.
The girl who you were dancing with is an actress.
The girl that you were dancing with is an actress.
The girl you were dancing with is an actress.
So, as you can see, there are many ways to say the same thing.