Relative Pronouns and Clauses

IES El Señor de Bembibte

© English Dpt.

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Pronouns

Come in the place of a noun Have a syntactic function

Remember:

These are the personal pronouns

SubjectI

youhesheit

weyouthey

Objectmeyouhimheritus

youthem

Personal pronouns always come alone They do not have a plural form

Remember:

SubjectWhen a personal pronoun is the subject in a sentence it always

comes before the verb.

He studies English at school. They went to a trip to London.

Object

When a pronoun is the object in a sentence it always comes after the verb.

Peter gave her a ring. Everybody likes them.

Noun

The boy

The ball

Pronoun

He

It

The boy could not catch the ball.

It (the ball) was too high up for him (the boy).

Noun

boy

ball

Pronoun

Him

It

Relative Pronouns

When

What

Where

Who

Which

Whose

That

Who / Whom

The boy who is dancing

The girls who are talking

The girl who is riding a motorcycle

The boys who are playing chess

Refers to people

Whom?, we’ll check on it later.

Which Refers to things

The film which we watched

The elephant which is at the Zoo

The pencils which are in the mug

The paella which we ate yesterday

The shoes which she likes

Where Refers to places

Bembibre , where I live

The high school where we study

New York, where the Empire State is

London, where we went

When Refers to time

The time when we start classes

In summer, when it is sunny, …

The moment/day/month/year when we met

At night when we sleep

WhatRefers to a whole idea not mentioned

He does not like what the newspaper says

I don’t understand what I am listening

Do you know what is in the box?

“lo que”

These clauses are nominal ones!

WhoseWhose for the possessive case.

•It joins an owner with an object possessed•It is a bit heavy in style and should be avoided whenever possible. •The commonest way of avoiding it is by using “with”:

The teacher whose sweater is red

Cervantes, whose novel is El Quixote, …

Whom• It is used instead of who after a preposition, • It is very formal.

Look at these sentences

The boy who I talked to

What is the difference?

preposition + who > preposition + whom

who > preposition at the end

Pronoun omitted > preposition at the end

The boy to whom I talked

The boy I talked to

The boy to whom I talkedThe boy who I talked toThe boy I talked to

ThatIt is used both for people and thingsIt cannot come in non-defining clauses! It cannot come after a preposition! It is used after superlatives and numerals and words like:

people, everybody, everyone, someone, somebody

…You are the one that I want, ho, ho, ho, honey…

Kinds of relative clausesDefining

Non- defining

Students who develop independent learning skills achieve good academic results.

A university is a place where people pursue advanced knowledge in specific academic disciplines.

Computer games that involve fighting and shooting apparently have a negative effect on young people.

Albert Einstein, who put forward the theory of relativity, is considered by many as the most intelligent person in human history.

Defining clauses

give detailed information defining a general term or expression.

Do you know the girl who is talking to Tom?

are often used in definitions

A sailor is someone who works on a ship.

Object pronouns in defining relative clauses can be omitted.

The boy (who/whom) we met yesterday is very nice.

Non-defining clauses give additional information on something, but do not define it. are put between commas.

Mary, who is talking to Tom, is my friend

Note: In non-defining relative clauses, who/which may not be replaced with that.

Object pronouns in non-defining relative clauses must be used.

Jim, who we met yesterday, is very nice.

The importance of the syntactic function of the relatives

Subject Pronoun or Object Pronoun? Subject and object pronouns cannot be distinguished by their forms - who, which, that- are used for subject and object pronouns. You can, however, distinguish them as follows:

If the relative pronoun is followed by a verb, the relative pronoun is a subject pronoun. Subject pronouns must always be used.

The book which/that is on the table

If the relative pronoun is not followed by a verb (but by a noun or pronoun), the relative pronoun is an object pronoun. Object pronouns can be omitted in defining relative clauses, which are then called Contact Clauses.

The book (which/that) George put on the table

Person Object

Subject who, that which, that

Object Ø, that, who, whom Ø, which, that

Possessive whose whose

Relative Pronouns in Defining Relative Clauses

Person Object

Subject who which

Object who, whom which

Possessive whose whose

Relative Pronouns in Non-Defining Relative Clauses

That’s all folks!