Relative Clauses (Intermediate -)
By Viv Quarry (www.vivquarry.com)
Defining Relative Clauses
It's considered bad writing style to use very short sentences:
I met the man. He works in the bank.
I bought the coat. It was in the shop window.
I met the man. Susan loves him.
I bought the coat. Susan wanted it.
In the first two sentences, the man and the coat are the SUBJECT of the second sentence.
In the last two sentences, the man and the coat are the OBJECT of the second sentence.
We use relative pronouns to join two short sentences to make a longer sentence.
Who = people That/which = things Where = places
The combined sentences plus the relative pronoun is called a relative clause.
Person/thing = subject
I met the man who works in the bank. I bought the coat that was in the shop window.
Person/thing = object
I met the man who Susan loves. I bought the coat that Susan wanted.
When the relative clause defines the subject a relative pronoun must be used. However, when the relative clause defines the object, the relative pronoun can be missed out:
I met the man Susan loves. I bought the coat Susan wanted.
In the examples above, the relative clause cannot be missed out because it defines who/what the person or thing is:
I met the man. X I met a man. √ I bought the coat. X I bought a coat. √
'Where' can only be missed out if the preposition 'at' is used.
The hotel was very expensive. We stayed at it.
The hotel where we stayed was very expensive. The hotel we stayed at was very expensive.
Non-defining relative clauses
In non-defining relative clauses, 'who' is used for people and 'which' is used for things (you cannot use 'that'). Both these relative pronouns MUST COME AFTER A COMMA.
Susan, who is John's sister, met the mananger.
My coat, which was very expensive, is over there.
Non-defining relative clauses give additional information about the subject and therefore the sentence still makes sence if the relative clause is missed out.
Susan met the manager. √ My coat is over there. √