Relative Clauses

Grammar: Relative clauses
Sections A & B in the book
Page 82 Section 5 in the workbook
Page 80 in the workbook, sections 2 & 3.

Relative clauses
Giving more information about something without using two sentences, or putting two sentences together.

• It will contain a subject and a verb
• It will begin with a relative pronoun.
• It will act as an adjective -> answering questions like "what kind" or "how many" or "which one"

It will follow one of these two patterns:

Relative pronoun or adverb + subject + verb or
Relative pronoun as subject + verb

Relative pronouns (from English Grammar online)

relative pronoun	use	example
who	subject or object pronoun for people	I told you about the woman who lives next door.
which	subject or object pronoun for animals and things	Do you see the cat which is lying on the roof?
which	referring to a whole sentence	He couldn’t read which surprised me.
whose	possession for people animals and things	Do you know the boy whose mother is a nurse?
whom	object pronoun for people, especially in non-defining relative clauses (in defining relative clauses we colloquially prefer who)	I was invited by the professor whom I met at the conference.
that	subject or object pronoun for people, animals and things in defining relative clauses (who or which are also possible)	I don’t like the table that stands in the kitchen.

Relative adverbs

Relative adverb	meaning	use	example
when	in/on which	refers to a time expression	the day when we met him
where	in/at which	refers to a place	the place where we met him
why	for which	refers to a reason	the reason why we met him

Defining relative clauses that are used to identify people

The information in the clause is necessary, it tells which person is being described or talked about. 

If you remove defining relative clauses, the sentence has a different meaning or no meaning at all.
Defining relative clauses are NOT put in commas.

Examples:

• Look out! There’s the dog that bit my brother.
• The film that we saw last week was awful.
• This is the skirt I bought in the sales.

Non defining relative clauses
These give information that is not important information for the sentence. If these clauses are removed then the sentence will not change it's meaning.
Non defining relative clauses are put in commas. 

Examples: 

• The film, which stars Tom Carter, is released on Friday.
• My eldest son, whose work takes him all over the world, is in Hong Kong at the moment.
• The car, which can reach speeds of over 300km/ph, costs over $500,000.