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! Could you help me with this one?
A heart attack is a sudden illness in which the heart beats violently.
Could you tell me the sentences for this sentence before using relative pronoun?
➡️ A heart attack is a sudden illness.
The heart beats violently in a sudden illness.
I’m not sure the bold one’s meaning is right.
Hello englishlearningenglish,
It's hard to know what the question-setter had in mind, but it may be to replace 'in which' with 'where':
We can often replace relative adverbs (e.g. where, when) with relative pronouns and prepositions (e.g. to which, in which, at which etc).
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello~ I have been taught that if the antecedent is modified by superlatives (e.g. the biggest), Ordinal numbers (e.g. the first), the very and indefinite pronouns (e.g. all), and the pronoun serves as a subjetc or object in the clause, then we can only use "that" instead of "which" or "who".
For example, 1. He is the very person that I am looking for. 2. This is the biggest room that we can offer. 3. That is all the money that he has.
I was wondering if it is really the case? I mean, can "who/whom" go with the 1st example? Can "which” go with the 2nd and 3rd example? Thx for your time~
Hello Radioheady,
Yes, that's correct. There are a number of constructions which require 'that' rather than 'who' or 'which'. You can find a good explanation with examples here:
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/78/when-to-use-that-and-when-to-use-which-especially-in-relative-clauses
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello, I’d like to know if I can replace ‘THAT’ with ‘WHICH’ in the following sentence:
The great outdoors is something that Jacky always enjoys.
Is it correct to say ‘The great outdoors is something WHICH Jacky always enjoys.’
Regarding the use of that to talk about the place, can we use that in the following sentence, ‘Do you remember the restaurant that / where we used to have breakfast together every Sunday morning?’
Thank you
Hello dorothy0813,
Yes, you can use 'which' in that sentence.
The second sentence is a little more complex. Using 'where' requires no preposition but using 'that' or 'which' requires a preposition:
In a formal context you can also put the preposition before 'which' (but not before 'that'):
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello,
Could you please help me with this sentence?
- He's definitely encountered some people who were very eager to change his mind.
I'd like to use the present perfect in the main clause to emphasize the speaker's certainty of such experiences having taken place and their present relevance. I have a hard time choosing the tense for my relative clause; to me, the past simple there might sound as if it refers to some point in time before those encounters. I don't need that; the tense of the relative clause has to convey the idea of 'eagerness to change his mind' being demonstrated during 'meetings/encounters' with those people.
Another option:
- He's definitely encountered some people who have been very eager to change his mind.
This one sounds cumbersome; again, it seems to refer to those people's having been eager to change his mind at some point prior to the encounters.
At the end of the day, we can probably get away with an option without any tenses in the second part:
- He's definitely encountered some people very/all too eager to change his mind.
But I'd like to understand what tense would work in the relative clause.
Thank you.
Hello Tony,
I agree with your analysis. Remember the context can often clarify meaning where a sentence has potential ambiguity in isolation. The first sentence, for example, could mean people who were eager before he encountered them or at the time he encountered them; it does not necessarily tell us anything about their eagerness or lack of it now.
I think the second sentence suggests eagerness going through to the present, though there is also ambiguity here. I would tend towards this interpretation, however.
The third sentence, with its ambiguous ellipsis, avoids any clear time reference in the verb form and so we take the time reference from the context and the verb in the main clause. This is probably the safest option.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Thank you.
Hello again Peter,
Thank you very much.
Dialogue 1
Martin Brundle: A few words about this year's newcomer. Being an aspiring young politician, Peter Bonnington worked for Adrian Newey, who served as the 45th governor of Wisconsin from 2011 to 2019. After five years of political wandering and uncertainty, he confirmed his intention to create his own political party. Due to unstable financing and a lack of support from his ex-mentors, this process took longer than expected.
David Coulthard: This year's International Republican Conference has gathered 117 attendees from 34 political parties. They are all in a relatively small, enclosed space. I wonder why we have not had any fights yet. Mr. Bonnington has definitely run into some people who were very eager to change his mind. A few influential politicians were trying to persuade him to bail out, and it's a well-known fact that the former employers were not very happy when he made the announcement about creating a new political force 18 months ago. I believe most of those individuals are here today.
I've changed 'encounter' to 'run into' in my sentence here. I think 'run into' just fits this context a little better.
Dialogue 2
A: Don't you think that people pay too much attention to others' opinions? We're constantly seeking some sort of approval; it limits our creativity and often makes us quit doing something interesting and joyful. Furthermore, some individuals from our surroundings are always ready to help us abandon 'our silly ideas', and they usually put there some new, good ones instead.
B: That's true. I've definitely encountered some people who were very eager to change my mind. Guess what? They succeeded. In retrospect, those were very silly decisions. There's nothing I can do now.
Is there any difference between the sentences in bold?
Thank you again.
Hello again Tony,
I think there is a difference. The present perfect in the first sentence describes a recent event (running into people at the conference) with a present result or effect (Mr. Bonnington has been effected by the encounter and can tell you about it). The present perfect in the second sentence describes something that happened during the whole of his life (sometimes called present perfect for experience). The second part of both sentences tells us that the people were eager when he met them, not anything else.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello, sir.
In the sentence "More people died of the Spanish Flu than died in the war", I was wondering whether "than" in the sentence serves as a pronoun (the subject of the clause) or simply a conjunction to link? If it is not a pronoun, what is the subject of the clause? Or is the subject elided?
Can "than" be used as a linking word for a relative clause? If no, it can only be a linking word for a comparative clause, right?
Thanks for your time~
Hello Radioheady,
In your example, than is a conjunction.
Than is not a relative pronoun, so the answer to your second question is no.
Generally, it's better to provide examples with questions like this so we can be sure our answers are accurate, and also so the information is clearer to other users.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Thank you for your kind reminder. Here are some more examples.
In the above 2 sentences, I don't see any subjects in the clauses. Is it because both subjects are omitted?
Thanks
Hello again Radioheady,
Yes, that's correct. Sentence 1 has a passive verb form so you would add something like 'by the crew' or similar if you wanted to add an agent. Sentence 2 does not have any comparative structure and does not contain 'than' at all.
Than as conjunction or preposition is a question which is debated by grammarians. You can find discussions of the topic online:
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/230545/determining-if-than-is-used-as-conjunction-or-preposition
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/usage-of-rather-than
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Peter,
Thank you very much.
So, without any additional information, the events in the first sentence in bold would probably be understood as two actions that happened at the same time, right?
But if we add a couple of modifiers, the first sentence in bold won't have any ambiguity:
David Coulthard: This year's International Republican Conference has gathered 117 attendees from 34 political parties. They are all in a relatively small, enclosed space. I wonder why we have not had any fights yet. At the main hall, Mr. Bonnington has definitely run into some people who were very eager to change his mind when he first made the announcement about creating a new political force 18 months ago. A few influential politicians were trying to persuade him to bail out, and it's a well-known fact that the former employers were not very happy as well. I believe most of those individuals are here today.
Will this sentence be clear and natural?
Thank you again.
Hello again Tony,
Yes, that looks very clear to me.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Peter,
Thank you very much. You are an absolute rock star.
"Sometimes I see sentences where 'where' is used without referring to places. Can you explain it to me?"
" A quiz where you guess if the things I say after this are true or false. "
Hello jantha,
We can use 'where' to mean something like 'in which' and it doesn't have to refer to places. For example:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello,
I've come across this dialog:
Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC, September 29, 2015)
Jimmy: That's funny. Has there ever been a situation where you didn't know your lines before?
Viola: There's been a situation where I have not known my lines, and there's been a (laughs)... the most prominent situation is when I was doing "Doubt" and Meryl Streep kept screwing up one line.
The structures of the question and the answer are identical, but the where-clauses are so different. Having done a little research, I can conclude that in terms of popularity, the present perfect and the past simple are equally popular among native speakers; it seems to me that they are often interchangeable in where- and when-clauses. However, my research and its interpretation can't be perfect, so I would really appreciate it if you could tell me whether there is any difference between the clauses in bold?
Thank you
Hi Tony_M,
I think it really depends on whether the speaker is thinking of the topic as being a life experience or a concrete event anchored in time. As you know, the same action can be seen in different ways and described in different ways, especially in the context of a spontaneous unscripted conversation. Even in the first sentence Jimmy Kimmel shifts from asking about Viola's whole life (Has there ever been...) to referring to a concrete event anchored in time (you didn't know...). The same thing happens in the answer. I think it's quite characteristic of this kind of conversation and more a reflection of the fluid way we can see our past rather than being connected to the particular clause structure used.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Peter M.,
Thank you very much.
So, the present perfect was used there to generalize the information about her life experiences, right?
Something like:
Has there ever been a situation (at any time before now in your life) where you didn't know (and here Jimmy is trying to refer to an individual instance in more detail; since he knows that if it's happened before now, it was obviously in the past (then), he uses the past simple).
And Viola tried to keep the present perfect going after she used it at the beginning of her answer.
Does it make sense?
Tony
Hello again Tony,
Yes, I think that's a good summary.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Peter,
Thanks for being a huge help.
Tony
hi everyone. New here. I am struggling with a question.... I have taken this from an english book and it says one asnwer though I am not entirely sure , it´s related to the use of whom or who. The answer given by the book says WHOM, I think I get but why not WHO considering the action of wearing clothes is done by the ¨people¨. but I understand there is a preposition OF so that would be the only reason I could understand why is WHOM the answer but I am not sure..... please help. This is the exercise:
There were people at the wedding, none of ___ were wearing formal clothes.
a which b whom c who d that
Hello miss.jenny,
The correct form here is 'whom' because it directly follows a preposition. 'Whom' is disappearing from the language as time goes by but it is still always required directly after a preposition.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello, dear teachers and team!
Could you please help me with the following:
I've seen the following sentences in the Longman Dictionary:
1. Miranda was sure it was one of them,but not sure which.
2. I don't know which of us was the most scared.
So, tell me please if I could substitute "which" with "who" or "whom" in these sentences ?
I'm very grateful for your valuable contribution to my knowledge and thank you very much indeed for your answer to this post!!!
Hello howtosay_,
In sentence 1 you could use 'who' as the pronoun refers to a person here.
In sentence 2 you could also use 'who', for the same reason.
'Whom' is not correct in either sentence. Just as we say 'Do you know who it was?' (not whom), so in sentence 1 we would not use 'whom'. In sentence 2 'which' is the subject of the verb ('which was the most scared'), so 'whom' is not possible.
'Whom' is quite unusual in modern English apart from when it directly follows a preposition (for whom, to whom, with whom etc).
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi, how is it with relative clauses and formality? Is it right that THAT is used in informal settings mainly and relative clauses with WHICH are more formal? If yes, is the explanation that before THAT we can’t use a preposition? When we use a prepostion before WHICH it is more formal so there would be “a clash” when the preposition would be used at the end of the sentence. Thanks. Jana
Hello Jana,
I don't think there's a strong correlation between formality and the choice of that or which/who. That said, I think 'that' is relatively more common in speech but it is not particularly informal.
Using prepositions before relative pronouns is generally quite a formal style but I wouldn't search for a deeper reason along the lines you suggest - I think this would be reading too much into the structures. There are many ways of showing formality in English and changing the word order is quite a common one. For example:
Here we change the words order and use inversion to create a more formal style. I would see 'in which' as something similar.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi,
Can you help me distinguish the difference between “where” and “which”? I have read your comment saying that “where: show a location of an action”, so can you give me a description about “which”, “which” shows what?
Thank you,
Hello Sally Soo,
We use the relative pronoun 'which' to refer to things (e.g. 'That's the house which she wants to buy' or 'We had sushi, which is my favourite food'), with prepositions (e.g. 'That's the knife with which we cut the vegetables' or 'That's the knife which we cut the vegetables with') and with quantifiers (e.g. 'I had three cars, two of which now belong to someone else').
I'm not sure I've answered your question. If not, please feel free to ask again.
All the best,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team
Hi,
I'd like to know which one of these two sentences is correct?
The girl, whom I was telling you about, has already arrived
The girl, who I was telling you about, has already arrived
Moreover, is the "girl" the subject of the sentence? Or there are two subjects? The "girl" and "I".
Thanks a lot
Ax
Hello Ax45,
Grammatically, both sentences are possible. However, both seem quite awkward.
In modern English the use of 'whom' in a relative clause is very unusual and can sound rather stilted and archaic, so I think 'who' is the better option.
Notes that both sentences have non-defining relative clauses which add extra information rather than serving to identify the girl. Without knowing the context in which the sentences are used I can't say for certain if this is appropriate but it seems highly likely that a defining relative clause would be more suitable here, meaning one without commas which answers the question 'which girl'.
The sentence has two clauses and each clause has a subject: 'The girl' in the main clause and 'I' in the relative clause.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi!
That sentence confused me, ı found it while studying;
→ I visited the city (that / which) John comes from.
I would write 'where'..?
Hi Sanem0,
The correct form here is 'which' or 'that'.
When we use 'where' we do not include a preposition. Compare:
The phrase 'comes from' never loses its preposition so there is no equivalent of the second example above. It's a quirk of this particular verb, I'm afraid.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello. I was wondering whether the word 'where' in the following sentence may be replaced with 'that' without changing the original meaning of the sentence. I learned that this is possible in some cases, but was not sure if this is the case.
The sentence is "On our way to the site, there was a town where the main square and market were crowded with local people. At the market, I bought a cute doll from a woman who had made it herself".
I tried to search for a right answer to this question, but the results are mixed. I found some sources (e.g. grammarly.com and englishgrammar.org) saying no, but others (e.g. languagetool.org) saying yes.
I also found a case where 'that' can be used instead of 'where':
This is the restaurant where (that) we had a dinner last night.
I would like to learn why the replacement is allowed in this sentence.
Thank you so much for your time.
Hello chkcho,
All of your examples are relative clauses but you have two different grammatical items within them: that/who/which are examples of relative pronouns; where/when are examples of relative adverbs.
Generally speaking, you can replace a relative adverb with a relative pronoun plus an appropriate preposition, not just a relative pronoun. For example:
Note that when you use 'that' you need to put the preposition at the end, not before 'that'. When you use 'which' the preposition can be in either position.
As far as your examples go:
You cannot use 'that' here. You could use 'in which':
We would not use the alternative word order here as the phrase is too long; we only put the preposition at the end when the phrase is short as otherwise the sentence becomes quite hard to follow.
Grammarly is more of a style guide than a real grammar guide, in my opinion. I wouldn't recommend using it for language analysis. Sites such as this or Cambridge's grammar site are much better.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Team,
I got puzzled by this sentence. This is about punctuation in defining and non-defining relative clause. Should I put the comma '','' in my sentence because I think the sport that is played all over the world is just the extra information?
1. Football is a popular sport which is played all over the world.
2. Football is a popular sport, which is played all over the world.
Thank you very much.
Hello anhtuan01995,
I think the sentence is better without a comma. The reason is that there are many popular sports. The sport you are describing is different from some as it is one which is played all over the world. Thus, I would say that the information in the relative clause has an identifying function: it does not simply add an extra comment but actually serves to partly narrow down (restrict) the possible range of meaning. An alternative name for defining relative clauses is restrictive relative clauses and I think it is helpful to think of relative clauses in this way.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Good morning, I'm confused. Could you help me with this question?
Although a graduate degree is a requirement for the position, none of --- who responded to the job announcement have one. (a) these (b) those
The answer is "those". Why "these" is unsuitable?
Is there any example like this sentence which I can use "these who" as pronoun?
Hi ddh13,
When the meaning is "the ones", only "those" is used. "These" would only be used if you are making some kind of physical gesture (e.g. pointing with your finger) to show which people you are referring to.
For more information, you may be interested in this page from Cambridge Dictionary (see the final section, Substitution with that, those). I hope it helps.
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Hello,
As it is written above:
There are two kinds of relative clause:
1. We use relative clauses to make clear which person or thing;
2. We also use relative clauses to give more information about a person, thing or situation.
I would like to ask for more: are the first ones called "defining relative clauses" and the second "non-defining relative clauses"?
Is it correct to say: defining relative clauses are used for essential information, while non-defining relative clauses just for extra information?
Thanks for your help
Hello User_1,
Yes, that's a good summary. The terms that are most often used are defining / restrictive and non-defining / non-restrictive.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Peter,
Thanks for your reply.
Hello! I am confused. Could you help me with this sentence?
1. Doctor Strange is a film about a superhero_________ stars Benedict Cumberbatch.
(That/which is written in answer, not where.) I know that “where” we use for a place and a film is not a place. That’s why it is not mention in answers. Am I correct?
Thanks in advance.
Hello nino123,
Yes, you are quite right. Well done!
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
I wanted to know if a sub clause can function both as a noun clause and a relative clause.
We may take the following sentences for analysis.
1. This is the reason why I'm here.
2. I don't know the reason why he was absent yesterday.
In sentence 1, the sub clause 'why I'm here' is a noun clause as it works as a complement of be verb . However, it also modifies the noun 'reason' as a relative clause does. In Sentence 2, 'why he was absent yesterday' functions as the object of the verb 'know', making it a noun clause. Again the same clause modifies the noun 'reason' as a relative clause does.
Now, what would I write if I was asked to identify the type of sub clause in those sentences? Please help me.
Thanking you!
Hello Prap,
This is a language learning forum where we focus on language use and accuracy. Your question is really on a linguistics topic, which is rather different. I think a better place for this kind of question is the appropriate part of StackExchange:
https://english.stackexchange.com
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello, sir. I have a question. Can conjunction follow the relative clause? Or not?
Do the relative clauses always have to be followed by the relative pronouns? Because, in several cases, I often found them didn't use the relative pronoun.
And one last question, how to differentiate between a sentence that really needs the relative pronoun and one that does not?