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Grammar Mini-lesson
Relative pronouns and relative clauses
✅The relative pronouns are: who,whom, whose, which, 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.
✅There are two kinds of relative clause:
1️⃣We 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 (that) Jack built. (that is the object of built)
🔸Be careful!
The relative pronoun is the subject/object of the relative clause, so we do not repeat the subject/object:
▪️Marie Curie is the woman who
she discovered radium.
(who is the subject of discovered, so we don't need she)
▪️This is the house that Jack built
it.
(that is the object of built, so we don't need it)
2️⃣We 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:
Lord Thompson
, who is 76, has just retired.
(NOT
Lord Thompson, that is 76, has just retired.)
and we cannot leave out the pronoun:
We had fish and chips,
which I always enjoy.
(NOT
We had fish and chips, I always enjoy.)
✅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 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.
✅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 programs on the radio,
none of which I listened to.
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