RELATIVE CLAUSES

Relative pronouns
Use:
 who for people
 which for things/groups of people (e.g.
team)
 that for things and people
 whose for possessions belonging to
people and things
 Defining and non-defining
relative clauses
1. My uncle who lives in New York is
coming to Oxford. (defining)
2. My uncle, who lives in New York, is
coming to Oxford. (non-defining)
 Defining and non-defining
relative clauses
 Defining relative clauses give essential
information about a noun.
 Non-defining relative clauses give extra
information about a noun. Use a
comma before and after the relative
clause.
 Defining and non-defining
relative clauses
1. My uncle who lives in New York is
coming to Oxford. (defining)

 In sentence 1, who lives in New York is

a defining relative clause. The speaker
has more than one uncle so she
identifies which uncle she is talking
about.
 Defining and non-defining
relative clauses
2. My uncle, who lives in New York, is
coming to Oxford. (non-defining)

 In sentence 2, it is a non-defining
relative clause. It gives extra non-
essential information about the uncle.
 Defining and non-defining
relative clauses
In defining relative clauses that can
replace who and which.

My uncle who/that lives in New York

is coming to Oxford.
The food which/that they sold was
delicious.
 Defining and non-defining
relative clauses
 Wh-pronouns commonly occur with
non-defining clauses.

My best friend, who I met at university, is

coming for dinner.
That project, which I started years ago, still
isn't finished.
Adverbs as relativizers
the place where she was born
the day when you graduate
the reason why they left
Relative pronoun choices:
whose vs. of which
 whose for possessions

whose – animate and inanimate heads

of which – inanimate heads
Relative pronoun choices:
whose vs. of which
Two white males whose names we don’t know.
(animate head)

A crystal is a piece of matter the boundaries of

which are plane surfaces. (inanimate head)
OR
A crystal is a piece of matter whose boundaries
are naturally formed plane surfaces.
Relative pronoun choices:
who vs. whom
 who with subject gap:
This gentleman is the doctor who
examined the body. (The doctor examined
the body)
 whom with object gap:
They had one child, a girl whom they
idolized. (They idolized the girl)
Relative pronoun choices:
who vs. whom in object gaps
 In formal written and spoken English,
if the pronoun refers to the object of
the clause, we use whom.
My German teacher, whom I really
admired, retired last year.
The woman whom I called this morning
was my secretary.
Relative pronoun choices:
who vs. whom
In spoken language, who with object
gaps is more common.

 There are people who they idolize.

 Leaving out the relative pronoun
 When using defining relative clauses in
informal speech and writing, the relative
pronoun can be left out if it refers to the
object of the relative clause.

The girl (who) I like isn’t here yet.

This is the shirt (that) I bought.
The preposition and the relative pronoun

 He completed the book on which he’d

been working.
 He completed the book which he’d
been working on.
The preposition and the relative pronoun

 In formal sentences we put the

preposition before the relative pronoun:
He completed the book on which he'd
been working.
 In informal sentences, the preposition
stays with the verb: He completed the
book which he'd been working on.