RELATIVE CLAUSES

Relative clauses

Defining and non-defining

clauses

In the schoolyard

Natalie?
The girl who
plays the
piano?

I saw Natalie
the other day.

In the schoolyard

No, that’s Natasha.
Natalie is the girl
who dropped out of
college.

In the schoolyard

She’s working in
Davidson’s now. You
know, the shop that
sells expensive
clothes.

Let’s look at the lines more closely

• Emma: I saw Natalie the other day.
• Melanie: Natalie? The girl who plays the piano?
• Emma: No, that’s Natasha. Natalie is the student who

dropped out of college. She’s working in Davidson’s
now. You know, the shop that sells expensive clothes.

 Clauses printed in red are called relative clauses.

They give us more information about the subject or
the object of the previous sentence/clause.

Explanation

• The relative clauses in this conversation

identify which person/thing they are talking
about. The clause who plays the piano tells us
which girl Melanie means. The clause that
sells very expensive clothes tells us which
shop Emma means.

• Relative clauses are usually introduced by

pronouns: who, which and that.

WH0

• The relative pronoun who refers to people.

e.g. The woman who lived here before us is

a romantic novelist.

• It is also possible to use that when we talk

about people especially in informal language.

e.g. This is the girl that has eaten all the

biscuits.

THAT/WHICH

• The relative pronouns that & which refer to

things. That is more usual than which,
especially in conversation.

e.g. The car that won the race looked very

futuristic.

• Which is more formal.

e.g. All cells contain DNA which holds

genetic information.

WHOSE

• WHOSE - refers to things belonging to

people.

e.g. That was the man whose car was stolen.

Subject/object

• Relative pronouns can be either the subject

or the object of the relative clause.

Examples:

Marco Polo was a merchant who visited China in the

13thcentury. (subject)
Glaciers are rivers of ice which form in cold climates
on mountains. (subject)
Einstein is a scientist who I admire. (object)
This is the poem that I wrote in my first
year. (object)

Leaving out the relative pronoun

• We can leave out the relative pronoun when it

is the object of the relative clause.

e.g. Einstein is a scientist I admire.

This is the poem I wrote in my first year.

Defining or non-defining relative clauses

• As mentioned above, relative clauses give

important information about the subject or
object. These are called defining clauses.

• In written language, we sometimes use non-

defining clauses which give extra information,
which we could leave out, and are separated
by commas. That is not used.

e.g. John Lennon, who was born in 1940,

was a member of the Beatles.

Relative adverbs

• We can also use some relative adverbs at the

beginning of a relative clause:

• WHERE – refers to a place

e.g. We went to a camp where we stayed two

years ago.

• WHEN - refers to a time

e.g. I’ll never forget the day when I met you.