Grammar II Carlos Jos Zayas Santos

Stephanie Carolina Nazar Torrez April 12th - 2012

Defining relative clauses give detailed information defining a general term or expression.

Ex: Tom is in a room with five girls One girl is talking to Tom and you ask somebody whether he knows this girl.

(english grammar online, 2010)

 In

defining relative clauses can be dropped.

The

boy (who/whom) we met yesterday is very nice. (english grammar online, 2010)

 Relative

clauses with who, which, that as subject pronoun can be replaced with a participle.

Ex:

I told you about the woman who lives next door. (english grammar online, 2010)

clause is a part of a sentence. A relative clause tells us which person or thing the speaker means. Examples:
People

who live in London (who live in London tell us what kind of people). (Smalzer r. M., 1989-2000)

 We

use Who in a relative clause when we are talking about people (not thing). We use Who instead of he/she/they:

The

woman-she lives next door-is a doctor.

The woman who lives next door is a

Example.

doctor.
(Smalzer r. M., 1989-2000)

When we are talking about things, we use that or which (not who) in relative clause.
Examples: Where

is the cheese? - It was in the refrigerator is the cheese (that, which ) was in the refrigerator? (Smalzer r. M., 1989-2000, p. 178)

where

You must use who/that/which when it is the subject of relative clause.

You

cannot say The woman lives next door is doctor or Where the cheese is was in the refrigerator?
(Reimes, How to English Works, 1997)

We use whose in relative clauses instead of his/her/their:

We

saw some people their car had broken down saw some people whose car had broken down. (Language Dynamics, 2010)

We

We use whose mostly for people:

A

window is a woman whose husband is dead. (Her husband is dead) met someone whose brother I went to school with. (I went to school with his/her brother)

(Language Dynamics, 2010)

Compare who and whose:

I I

met a man who knows you. (He knows you)

met a man whose sister knows you. (His sister knows you) (Language Dynamics, 2010)

You can use where in relative clause to talk about a place:

The

hotel we stayed there wasnt very clean. The hotel where we stayed wasnt very clean. (English as 2nd Language, 2012)

Ex.

We say: the day/ the year/ the time, etc. (Something happens or that something happens)
Ex: Do

you still remember the day (that) we first met? The last time ( that) I saw her, she looked fine. (English as 2nd Language, 2012)

First type:
Relative

clause, tells us which person or thing (or what kind of person or thing) the speaker mean: the woman who lives next door tell us which woman.

(Reimes, How to English Works, 1997, p. 184)

Second type:
Relative

clause, do not tell us which person or thing the speaker mean. We already know which thing or person is meant: my brother Jim, Brads new job, and that Grand Hotel. (Reimes, How to English Works, 1997, p. 184)

Use relative clauses to provide extra information. This information can either define something, or provide unnecessary, but interesting, added information.

Relative clauses can be introduced by: Examples: No relative pronoun: Where, why and when instead of a relative pronoun A relative pronoun: who (whom), which, that, whose

(English as 2nd Language, 2012)

 Add

to relatives clauses we need to consider the following when deciding which relative pronoun to use: Examples: Does it refers to a person or an object? Is the subject or object or possessive of a relative clause?

(English as 2nd Language, 2012)