Welcome to our lesson on relative clauses! A relative clause is a dependent clause that provides additional information about a noun in a sentence. Let's start with a simple example. We have the sentence 'The book was interesting.' Now, what if we want to specify which book we're talking about? We can add a relative clause: 'The book that I read was interesting.' Here, 'that I read' is the relative clause that gives us more information about the book. The main clause is shown in blue, and the relative clause is highlighted in green. Relative clauses help us be more specific and descriptive in our writing.
Now let's explore the different relative pronouns and their specific functions. There are five main relative pronouns: who, whom, which, that, and whose. 'Who' is used for people when they are the subject of the relative clause, as in 'The teacher who teaches math.' 'Whom' is also for people, but when they are the object, like 'The person whom I met.' 'Which' is used specifically for things, such as 'The car which is red.' 'That' is versatile and can be used for both people and things, as in 'The book that I read.' Finally, 'whose' shows possession, like 'The man whose car broke.' Understanding these distinctions will help you choose the correct relative pronoun in your writing.
Now let's distinguish between two important types of relative clauses: defining and non-defining clauses. Defining clauses provide essential information that identifies which person or thing we're talking about. For example, 'Students who study hard succeed' - here, 'who study hard' is essential to identify which students we mean. These clauses don't use commas. Non-defining clauses, on the other hand, give extra information that could be removed without changing the main meaning. For instance, 'My brother, who lives in London, is a doctor' - the clause 'who lives in London' is additional information about my brother, but we already know which brother from the context. Non-defining clauses are always set off by commas. Remember: commas indicate extra information, while no commas mean the information is essential.
Let's explore the advanced relative pronouns that help us express more complex relationships. 'Whose' shows possession or ownership, as in 'The house whose roof is red' - here we're talking about the house that owns or has the red roof. 'Where' refers to location or place, like 'The city where I was born' - it connects the clause to a specific location. 'When' relates to time, as in 'The day when we met' - it links the clause to a particular time period. Finally, 'why' expresses reason or cause, such as 'The reason why I left' - it explains the cause or motivation. These advanced pronouns allow us to create more sophisticated and precise connections between ideas in our sentences, making our writing more detailed and expressive.
Sometimes we can omit relative pronouns to make our sentences more concise and natural. However, there's an important rule to remember: we can only omit relative pronouns when they function as the object of the relative clause, never when they're the subject. For example, in 'The book that I bought is good,' the pronoun 'that' is the object of 'bought,' so we can omit it and say 'The book I bought is good.' Similarly, 'The person whom I met was nice' can become 'The person I met was nice.' But we cannot omit the pronoun when it's the subject. In 'The man who came is here,' 'who' is the subject of 'came,' so omitting it would create the incorrect sentence 'The man came is here.' Remember: object pronouns can be omitted, subject pronouns cannot.