Level: beginner
The relative pronouns are:
| Subject | Object | Possessive |
|---|---|---|
| who | who/whom | whose |
| which | which | whose |
| that | that | - |
We use relative pronouns to introduce relative clauses. Relative clauses tell us more about people and things:
Lord Thompson, who is 76, has just retired.
This is the house which Jack built.
Marie Curie is the woman that discovered radium.
We use:
- who and whom for people
- which for things
- that for people or things.
Two kinds of relative clause
There are two kinds of relative clause:
1. We use relative clauses to make clear which person or thing we are talking about:
Marie Curie is the woman who discovered radium.
This is the house which Jack built.
In this kind of relative clause, we can use that instead of who or which:
Marie Curie is the woman that discovered radium.
This is the house that Jack built.
We can leave out the pronoun if it is the object of the relative clause:
This is the house
thatJack built. (that is the object of built)
- Relative pronouns 1
- Relative pronouns 2
| Be careful! |
|---|
|
The relative pronoun is the subject/object of the relative clause, so we do not repeat the subject/object:
|
2. We also use relative clauses to give more information about a person, thing or situation:
Lord Thompson, who is 76, has just retired.
We had fish and chips, which I always enjoy.
I met Rebecca in town yesterday, which was a nice surprise.
With this kind of relative clause, we use commas (,) to separate it from the rest of the sentence.
| Be careful! |
|---|
|
In this kind of relative clause, we cannot use that:
and we cannot leave out the pronoun: We had fish and chips, which I always enjoy. |
- Relative pronouns 3
- Relative pronouns 4
Level: intermediate
whose and whom
We use whose as the possessive form of who:
This is George, whose brother went to school with me.
We sometimes use whom as the object of a verb or preposition:
This is George, whom you met at our house last year.
(whom is the object of met)This is George’s brother, with whom I went to school.
(whom is the object of with)
but nowadays we normally use who:
This is George, who you met at our house last year.
This is George’s brother, who I went to school with.
- Relative pronouns 5
Relative pronouns with prepositions
When who(m) or which have a preposition, the preposition can come at the beginning of the clause:
I had an uncle in Germany, from who(m) I inherited a bit of money.
We bought a chainsaw, with which we cut up all the wood.
or at the end of the clause:
I had an uncle in Germany, who(m) I inherited a bit of money from.
We bought a chainsaw, which we cut all the wood up with.
But when that has a preposition, the preposition always comes at the end:
I didn't know the uncle that I inherited the money from.
We can't find the chainsaw that we cut all the wood up with.
- Relative pronouns 6
when and where
We can use when with times and where with places to make it clear which time or place we are talking about:
England won the World Cup in 1966. It was the year when we got married.
I remember my twentieth birthday. It was the day when the tsunami happened.Do you remember the place where we caught the train?
Stratford-upon-Avon is the town where Shakespeare was born.
We can leave out when:
England won the World Cup in 1966. It was the year we got married.
I remember my twentieth birthday. It was the day the tsunami happened.
We often use quantifiers and numbers with relative pronouns:
| all of which/whom | most of which/whom | many of which/whom |
| lots of which/whom | a few of which/whom | none of which/whom |
| one of which/whom | two of which/whom | etc. |
She has three brothers, two of whom are in the army.
I read three books last week, one of which I really enjoyed.
There were some good programmes on the radio, none of which I listened to.
Hello Alaa El Baddini,
Whom is the object pronoun but is disappearing from use in modern English. Nowadays it is only required when it directly follows a preposition (so we say to whom, for whom and with whom rather than
to who,for whoandwith who).In other contexts, even if whom is grammartically possible, it can sound very unnatural. This is the case in your example. Whom is not grammatically incorrect, but it is not the normal choice in modern English and sounds rather unnatural.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Tim,
Yes, the relative clause is still a relative clause. It is usually called an adverb relative clause.
You need to distinguish between the adverb (when, where, why) and the clause as a whole. The function of the adverb is to head the clause and act as a connector with the rest of the sentence. The function of the clause as a whole is adjectival, as you say. In other words, the relative adverb is part of an adjectival clause.
You can often replace the relative adverb with a preposition and a relative pronoun:
Adverbs are perhaps the broadest category of word in English and sometimes the category is controversial for this reason, being seen as a catch-all category whose members have an extraordinary range of functions. You can see some of these under these links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Adverbs_by_type
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Tim,
Relative clauses provide information about a noun (or noun phrase) so their function in the sentence is adjectival. That is why they are sometimes called adjective clauses.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Erwin Smith
That's correct -- in informal situations, and even in some formal ones, people often use 'who' instead of 'whom'. There's quite a bit of variation in formal and academic writing and speaking -- sometimes you see or hear 'whom' and sometimes 'who'. It's difficult to give advice without knowing more about your situation, but you might perhaps use 'whom' in writing but 'who' in speaking.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello heoquay193,
Although we don't have the context, I think it is clear that this is a defining relative clause (identifying which friend you have in mind) rather than a non-defining relative clause (providing extra but unnecessary information). Defining relative clauses are not separated by a commas, so no comma should be used.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ahmed2020,
I think you're a little confused with the terminology here. Defining and non-defining in the context of this page refer to relative clauses, not to nouns. They describe particular grammatical constructions:
> defining relative clauses identify the particular item being described (more here)
> non-defining relative clauses give extra, non-essential information about the item being described (more here)
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Nguyen Quoc Cuong
The first one is grammatically correct: the verb 'involve' agrees with the plural noun 'works'. In 2, 'involves' would agree with the subject 'work', but not 'works'.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello NisaMsaraa
You could say:
1. Look at the old school that I used to go to.
2. The earrings my sister bought for me are lovely.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Tamigorositt,
The sentences in the first example can be joined with who or that:
You could omit the relative pronoun:
Your second example can be rewritten with a relative adverb, not a relative pronoun:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello GalaxyWolf-Dragon6786
There are different ways you could combine the first one:
For the second one I'd say 'The form with the best results won the cup, which was presented by Mr Cadogan.'
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Noorsleiman09
The first two are fine, but the third is a bit awkward. Different writers and editors also have different opinions about the use of dashes, so in general I'd avoid them if possible. Instead, I'd write something like 'A few 6th-grade students planned a party'.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ahmed Imam,
The correct form is as follows:
I think in the past all which was a more common form, but it has largely disappeared in modern English.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Niania,
The relative clause beginning which stretches... is a defining relative clause. It does not only add extra information to the sentence but actually defines the noun before it. In other words, it answers the question 'Which range?'
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello EmiiR,
In this sentence, when is a subordinating conjunction. It introduces a dependent clause which has an adverbial function, giving us more information about the action in the main clause.
A relative clause has an adjectival function, giving us more information about the noun preceding it.
You can read more about adverbial clauses here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverbial_clause
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Kaisoo93
The first three could be correct, though I'd choose sentence 3 and put a comma after 'society'.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello zhouyoumin,
You are correct that the question is whether or not 'you' refers to many people or one person.
The pattern with 'It is...' does not change this. 'It is...' here creates a cleft sentence and can be used with both singular and plural nouns:
You can read more about cleft sentences on this page.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again zhouyoumin,
I have heard both forms used in modern English. My own preference is for 'is', which keeps 'who' as a third-person form. For example, all of these sound perfectly fine to me:
However, a sentence like this one sounds very unnatural to me:
The example 'It was you who stole the money' does not help in any way because 'stole' is a past form, and so has no marker for person. However, you could say 'It is you who steals the money'.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Gospodincoek,
We'll be happy to give you some advice but I can't see what your question is. What did you have to do in the test?
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Darshanie Ratnawalli,
In my opinion, the sentence is ambiguous. The relative clause refers to the item preceding it, but this could be the entire list ("the former conflict zones such as Cyprus, Sri Lanka and the Middle East") or it could be only the final item ("the Middle East").
Because the sentence is ambiguous, the only way to identify the referent would be to check other sources to confirm party policy.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Fleep,
You are quite correct that there is an error in the sentence. In fact, I would say that there is a second error. In the sentence as written the refusal relates to the lawyers, whereas it should relate to the President:
As far as the structure goes, what he says is a sham is a relative clause. This type of relative clause is a free relative clause, that is to say it is a relative clause which does not refer directly back to an element in the sentence.
You can read more about bound and free relative clauses here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_clause#Bound_and_free
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Boaz
I'll explain it in a little more detail for you to see if that helps. 'whom' is only used when the person is talks about is the object of a verb. For example, in the sentence 'This is George, whom you met at our house last year', 'whom' is the object of the verb 'met'.
In contrast, in the sentence 'George is the man who is sitting near the door', 'who' is the subject of the verb 'is sitting'.
One other important detail is that nowadays it's very common for people to say 'who' instead of 'whom'. In other words, the first sentence could also be 'This is George, who you met at our house last year' and still be correct.
I hope this helps. If not, please ask us a specific question so we can better help you.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Christine,
The first sentence (a) is correct. The relative clause (beginning with the relative pronoun 'who') should follow the noun which it describes. Here, that noun is 'The boy'.
The second sentence separates the relative pronoun from its referent, and this is the mistake in the sentence.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Quynh Nhu
I agree with your answer -- A is the only possibility here, though B would be correct if it were 'in which' or if 'in' was added after 'information'.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team