Relative Clauses

Relative Clauses

By Mireia Casassas

Defining Relative Clauses

We use them to give more information about a person or thing and make it clear which one are we talking about. We don't use commas in defining relative clauses

• who/ whom/ thar for people and which/that for things

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• Rock-climbing is for people who don't mind heights.

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• where/when/ why to define place, time or reason.

• I wasn't sure why we were visiting the park.

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• whose to show possesion

• We stayed with a family whose house was on the ocean​.

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A Relative Pronoun can be the subject or the object of a relative clause?

Who or Whom?

1. The girl who loves me lives in this house (the girl is the subject)

2. The girl whom I love lives in this house (I love the girl = object)

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This is George, whom you met at our house last year. (whom is the object of met)

This is George’s brother, with whom I went to school. (whom is the object of with)

• Prepositions are used in front of the relative pronouns only in formal language​

We can omit the relative pronoun....

• When it is the object

• The girl I love lives in this house

• When a verb is followed by a preposition

• Is this the wallet your were looking for?

• ​Present or past participle clause instead of a full relative clause

• We saw lots of people (who were) surfing​

We can use commas to separate non-defining relative clauses.

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We don't use that with which, who, whose, where and when.

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We can't leave out the relative pronoun​.

​Give extra information about something or somebody

Non-defining Relative Clause

Examples

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• The hotel, which is huge, has an amazing number of things to do in the games area​

• We went surfing, which was an incredible experience.

• One of the tourists, whose name I can't remember, slept for the whole journey​

Multiple Choice

Students from Barcelona walk along a route ........... takes them across the mountains

• which

• which/that

• where

Multiple Choice

Their journey is safer in winter, ..........they walk across

• when

• where

Multiple Choice

That's the boy to ........I gave my money

• who

• whom

Multiple Choice

We don't use the relative pronoun that in .....

• Defining relative clauses

• Non-defining

Multiple Choice

Non-defining relative clauses: who, which, where, whose and when cannot be

• replaced by that

• replaced by another relative pronoun