English grammar - Roger Berry 2012
B10.1 Relative pronouns
B10 Relative clauses
Section B Development
Relative clauses are a common type of subordinate clause. They form part of the post-modification of a noun phrase; i.e. they are not a clause element. Their role is to give extra information about the noun:
I have seen the film which won the Oscar.
Here the relative clause which won the Oscar is the postmodification of the noun phrase beginning the film . . . Overall this noun phrase represents the direct object of the main clause. We can also analyse the structure of the relative clause; in this case it is SVO, with which as the subject. Compared to premodification (see A3), postmodification with a relative clause allows quite complicated information to be given (though we could talk about the Oscar-winning film).
The construction of relative clauses in English is quite complicated, involving a number of steps and choices.
B10.1 Relative pronouns
Relative clauses are introduced by relative pronouns and determiners: who, whom, which, that, whose and ’zero’
The choice between them involves several factors:
□ who is used for human subjects and objects:
I know a man who can help us. (subject of the relative clause)
I know a man who we can help. (object of the relative clause)
□ whom is used for human objects:
I know a man whom we can help.
As with questions, it is limited to a very formal style; who is normal (as exemplified above) in non-formal situations. There is one situation where who cannot be used and where whom is obligatory: when there is an accompanying preposition:
I know the woman to whom you spoke.
But this is also very formal and there are non-formal alternatives.
□ which is used for non-human subjects and objects:
This is the book which pleased me most.
This is the book which I liked most.
Which can also be used as a ’sentential’ relative pronoun, where it refers back not to one person or thing (e.g. book in the above examples) but to the whole of the preceding clause:
They accused him of cheating in the exam, which he denied.
Here, which does not refer back to the exam but to the whole of the non-finite clause cheating in the exam. It is also possible to use which as a relative determiner here:
They said he had cheated in the exam, which accusation he denied.
But this sounds very old-fashioned. More normal (but still formal) would be
They said he had cheated in the exam, an accusation which he denied.
i.e. where which is used as a normal relative pronoun. However, which is commonly used as a relative determiner in certain prepositional phrases such as in which case:
They may be late, in which case we can start the show now.
□ that is the most common relative pronoun. It can be used for subjects and objects, both human and non-human:
I know a man that can help us. (subject, human)
I know a man that we can help. (object, human)
This is the book that pleased me most. (subject, non-human)
This is the book that I liked most. (object, non-human)
However, it cannot be used with a preposition: ’I know the woman to that you spoke.’
□ the ’zero’ relative pronoun. When the relative pronoun represents the object in
the relative clause it may be omitted in non-formal English:
This is the book I liked most
These are sometimes called ’contact’ relative clauses, because two noun phrases are in contact. However, contact clauses are more common when the second noun phrase is a pronoun, as with I in the above case; if there are two full noun phrases a relative pronoun is often used to separate them:
This is the book that my mother and father liked most.
NON-STANDARD ENGLISH
In informal spoken English contact relative clauses occur with the subject missing:
There was a great cheer went up’ (David Cameron, describing the reaction to his announcement of the royal wedding to his cabinet colleagues)
This is typical with existential there (see A8 and A11); . . . which went up would be normal.
□ whose is a possessive relative determiner; in other words it is used to link two nouns: This is the student whose essay I was telling you about.
□ It shows a relationship between the nouns similar to the genitive (the student’s essay - see A2) and the possessive determiners (her essay). It is not only used with human reference:
. . . an idea whose time has come.
Activity B10.1
Identify which of the relative clauses below could have the pronoun deleted (i.e. become a contact clause).
1. Floods are something which we haven’t planned for.
2. Floods are something for which we haven’t planned.
3. She is a woman who everybody respects greatly.
4. She is a woman who is greatly respected by everybody.
Relative clauses can also be introduced by when, where and why. The antecedents (see below) are basic abstract nouns such as place, reason and time:
They’ve put him in a place where he can do no harm.
The reason why she left is still unknown.
I can still remember a time when people left their doors unlocked.
These can be related to sentences with a preposition and which:
They’ve put him in a place in which he can do no harm.
Activity B10.2
As we have seen, wh- words are used in a number of ways: to introduce interrogatives, exclamatives (see B9), nominal clauses and relative clauses. In the first two cases they normally occur at the start of a clause (or at least as part of the first noun phrase in a clause); in the last two cases they typically occur in the middle of a sentence since they are linking two clauses. Distinguish the following sentences according to the above constructions.
1. I’ve discovered where the money is.
2. He used to work for a bank which went bankrupt.
3. What a nice day it is.
4. Whose woods these are, I think I know.
5. He is a thinker whose time is yet to come.
6. I’ve found a hotel where we can stay.