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Fullspate C1/C2 Grammar Lesson: Relative Clauses

Do you know?

Can you answer this Michigan ECPE grammar question?

Gus is left-handed, _____ no one else in our class is.

1. which
2. who
3. that
4. for which

You should be familiar with the relative pronouns: who, which, that, whose and whom.

Help with relative pronouns.

There are two ways of using relative pronouns:

A To specify what we are talking about.

X: I saw the woman.
Y: Which woman?
X: The woman who works for the secret police.

B To add extra information that could have gone in a separate sentence.

E.g. Two sentences: Coffee is drunk all over the world. Coffee was first cultivated in Ethiopia.
One sentence: Coffee, which was first cultivated in Ethiopia, is drunk all over the world.

Note: In this case we use commas.

EXERCISE 1: Put the information in the second sentence into the first using a relative pronoun.

1. Helen has been flying planes since she was a teenager. Helen is our best pilot.
2. Soya has been falling in price recently. Soya is the main export of Argentina.
3. Seattle is surrounded by dense forests. Seattle is also called "The Emerald City".

1 RULE: whom is used after a pronoun (like to, from, about) when referring to people.

This is the teacher from whom I have learned so much.
(Instead of: This is the teacher I have learned so much from.)

Note that from whom makes the first sentence sound more formal.

After pronouns we use which when referring to things.

There are things about which we know nothing.

Again, that sentence sounds more formal than:
There are things we know nothing about.

EXERCISE 2: Make the following sentences more formal by putting the prepositions in front of the relative pronouns (whom or which).

1. That man in black is the person I spoke to yesterday.
2. Bob and Fiona are two people who I can always rely on.
3. Ithaca is the place which he wanted to return to.
4. Jane says Frank is the person she wants to spend the rest of her life with.

2 RULE: that can refer to people and things but does not normally go after a comma.

The list of people that I really admire includes Sabriye Tenberken.
Impoliteness is one of the things that I can't stand.
French fries, which I love, are not the healthiest of foods.

QUESTION: Why can't the answer to the question about Gus at the beginning of this section be c?

3 RULE: which can refer to particular things but it can also refer to the whole of the previous idea.

Jane didn't say anything during the seminar, which was very strange because she is usually the most talkative member of the group.

4 RULE: whose shows that the thing following this word belongs to the person (or thing) which was mentioned previously.

That's the man whose dog bit me yesterday.
We rely on the sun, whose energy is virtually limitless.

5 RULE: We use commas before relative pronouns when we add extra information. We don't use commas when we are specifying who or what we are referring to.

This morning I spoke to Jane, who told me about her likes and dislikes.
She likes people who know how to enjoy themselves.

The first sentence could end after "Jane" but we add the relative clause to add the extra information about what she said.
In the second sentence we want to specify which kind of people she likes, and with this kind of relative clause we do not use commas.

EXERCISE 3: Which sentences need commas?

1. It rained a lot which was unusual for the time of year.
2. Greece which is a proud country was the birthplace of European civilization.
3. The Greeks who emigrated to Germany were sometimes victims of zenophobic attacks.
4. Detroit where so many cars used to be made has lost many of its factories.
5. Detroit is now a city which is more famous for its rap music.

6 RULE: We can miss out the relative pronoun as long as the verb that follows still has a subject.

It wasn't the sort of party that I was expecting.
The houses which people bought recently are starting to lose their value.

In the following sentences the verbs in bold need the relative pronouns as their subjects, and this is why we cannot leave them out.

The houses which collapsed were not built to a high standard.
People who do not overeat tend to live longer.

EXERCISE 4: Which of the following relative pronouns can be left out?

1. There are some taxi drivers that try to rip you off.
2. There are many local beauty spots that I've never been to.
3. The people who we met yesterday have moved to another hotel.
4. The Grand Hotel, which John recommended to us, was very disappointing.

Note: If we can miss out a relative pronoun, we usually do miss it out.

7 RULE: Sometimes instead of an ordinary relative clause we can use the -ing form of the verb.

In winter we have very few visitors on the island, which makes us feel isolated.
In winter we have very few visitors on the island, making us feel isolated.

Anyone who cheats will be immediately sent out of the examination room.
Anyone cheating will be immediately sent out of the examination room.

EXERCISE 5: Use the -ing form of the verb instead of the relative clause in these sentences.

1. People who want further details should contact us.
2. He put too much sugar in the cake mixture, which made it far too sweet.

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