Relative Clauses

Prof. M. Candelaria Luque C.

OVERVIEW OBJECTIVES OF THIS CLASS LEAD IN PRELIMINARY ACTIVITY PRACTICE FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITY BIBLIOGRAPHY

OBJECTIVES OF THIS CLASS By the end of this class, students should:

a) have activated and recycled their theoretical knowledge of the use of relative clauses in English. b) be able to analyse relative clauses in terms of their antecedent (personal vs. non personal) and the position of the relative pronoun/adverb in the clause (subject, object, possessive, object of preposition, etc). c) identify the formal and semantic differences between defining and non-defining relative clauses. d) decide on the most appropriate relative pronoun/ adverb to introduce a relative clause according to a given context. e) be able to produce meaningful sentences to identify, describe or give further information about an object, person, place, etc.

LEAD IN

A) Read the following article about an invention and its inventor. Identify all the relative clauses. (Remember; some relative clauses do not have a relative pronoun.) The first ones have been done for you.

What do you know about Liquid Paper? Liquid Paper is the white liquid 1that covers up the mistakes 2you make when writing or typing. It was invented by Bette Nesmith Graham, a secretary in Dallas in the early 1950s, who began using tempera paint to cover up her typing errors. At the time, she was a 27-year-old single mother of one son, struggling to make ends meet and working as a secretary to the chairman of a big Dallas bank. When she found herself confronted with her first electronic typewriter, whose ink didnt erase as cleanly as that of manual typewriters, Ms. Nesmith, who was also an artist, quietly began painting out her mistakes. Soon she was supplying bottles of her homemade preparation, called Mistake Out, which many other secretaries in the building started wondering about. When she lost her job with the company, she turned to working fulltime to develop the Mistake Out as a business, expanding from her house into a small trailer she had bought for the backyard. In hopes of marketing her product, she approached IBM, which turned her down. She stepped up her own marketing and within a decade was a financial success. The product, which came to be called Liquid Paper, was manufactured in four countries and sold in nearly three dozen. She finally sold the company to Gillette in 1979, when her simple, practical idea was a $47.5 million business.*
*Based on an article by Eric Morgebnthaler from, The Wall Street Journal, July 29, 1994.

(Adapted from Focus on Grammar Workbook. Koch, R.S. 1995, 105)

PRELIMINARY ACTIVITY

B) Read the words on the left and match them with one of the definitions on the right. a) is a person whose job is to connect and repair things such A plumber as water and drainage pipes, baths and toilets. b) is a bird with a rounded body, a short tail , and a short beak that is found by the sea or by lakes. a) is a long round piece of cork which is put into the top of a A corkscrew bottle, especially a wine bottle, to keep liquid inside. b) is a tool made of twisted metal which you use to pull a cork out of a bottle. a) is a small boy who accompanies the bride at a wedding. A tomboy b) is a girl who likes to play the same games as boys.

a) is a small creature that has four legs and a long tail and A newt can live on land and in water. b) is a pointed piece of metal at the end of some pens, which controls the flow of ink as you write.

C) Complete the following definitions using ideas of your own.

A teetotaller is _____________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ A know-all is________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ A couch potato is____________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ A pickpocket is______________________________________________ __________________________________________________________

PRACTICE

D) Fill in the gaps using who, which, whose, where or why.

One of the most famous buildings in the world is the White House, which is the official home of the US president. The White House is in Washington DC, 1)_____________ there are many other important buildings and monuments. The city, 2)_____________ was founded in 1970, was deliberately planned as a national capital. George Washington, 3)_____________was the first US president and 4)_____________ name was given to the city, wanted it to be the place 5)_____________the nations government would permanently reside. The White House, 6)_____________was originally named Executive Mansion, was built in pale grey sandstone. The colour of the stone, 7)_____________ was so different from the surrounding red brick buildings, was the reason 8)_____________ the mansion became known as the White House. The main building, 9)_____________ many presidents have lived, is part of a large complex 10)_____________ consists of over 130 rooms.

Adapted from Grammarway 4. Dooley, J & V. Evans. 1999,154. E) Read the following pairs of sentences. What is the difference in meaning and form? a) She has a nephew who has lived in Africa for ten years. She has a nephew, who has lived in Africa for ten years. b) Children, who grow up in a loving atmosphere, are successful at school. Children who grow up in a loving atmosphere are successful at school. c) Friends who give away secrets arent worth keeping. Friends, who give away secrets, arent worth keeping.

F) Join the sentences using defining or non-defining relative clauses. Give all the possible alternative relative pronouns/adverbs and use commas where necessary. Refer to the antecedent and the position of the relative element in the clause. a) My office is really big and comfortable. Its on the first floor. ___________________________________________________________ b) Yesterday I saw a girl. Her hair came down to her waist. ___________________________________________________________ c) Peter was fitter than I was. I played tennis with him on Sunday. ___________________________________________________________ d) He decided not to complete his university course. This was a great disappointment to his parents. ___________________________________________________________ e) Stratford-Upon-Avon is visited by thousands of tourists every year. Shakespeare was born there. ___________________________________________________________ f) I have five sisters. Two of them are married. ___________________________________________________________

FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITY

G) Complete the following using relative clauses to identify, describe or add extra information about an element in the given phrase. An ideal student is someone_________________________________________ The cousin_________________________________________________________ That was the funniest _______________________________________________ I didnt find your book________________________________________________ It is the third________________________________________________________ My mother is a woman_________________________________________________ I need something _____________________________________________________ He was sitting on my seat______________________________________________ My boss told me the same_____________________________________________ The government______________________________________________________

CONSULTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Azar, B (1992) Fundamentals of English Grammar. Second Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents. Benz, C. and A. Roemer.(1997) Grammar Dimensions. Workbook 2. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers. Close, R.A. (1975) A Reference Grammar for Students of English London: Longman. Collins Cobuild English Grammar (1990) London: Collins. Dooley, J. and V. Evans. (1999) Grammarway 4 Swansea, UK: Express Publishing. Graver, B.D. (1972) Advanced English Practice Second Edition London: Oxford University Press. Koch, R.S. (1995) Focus on Grammar Workbook Longman. Swan, M. (2005) Practical English Usage Third Edition Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thomson, A.J. and A.V. Martinet. (1980) A Practical English Grammar Third Edition Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yule, G. (1998) Explaining English Grammar UK: Prentice Hall International.