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Relative pronouns and relative clauses

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 that Jack 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:

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)

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:

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.)

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.

Average

Average: 4.5 (154 votes)

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Submitted by Radioheady on Tue, 07/05/2024 - 17:22

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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~

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Submitted by Peter M. on Wed, 08/05/2024 - 06:24

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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

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Submitted by Radioheady on Wed, 08/05/2024 - 10:09

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Thank you for your kind reminder. Here are some more examples.

1. He also paid much more attention to lightning and sound than had
been done before.
2. Children are likely to have the supervision at home that was
common in the traditional family structure.

In the above 2 sentences, I don't see any subjects in the clauses. Is it

because both subjects are omitted?

Thanks

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Submitted by Peter M. on Thu, 09/05/2024 - 05:48

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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

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Submitted by jantha on Mon, 29/04/2024 - 03:16

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"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. "

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Submitted by Peter M. on Mon, 29/04/2024 - 06:05

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Hello jantha,

We can use 'where' to mean something like 'in which' and it doesn't
have to refer to places. For example:

We had a meeting where she got really angry.

I was listening to a song where they tell the story of their family.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

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Submitted by Tony_M on Sun, 31/03/2024 - 23:21

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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

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Submitted by Peter M. on Mon, 01/04/2024 - 06:44

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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

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Submitted by Tony_M on Tue, 02/04/2024 - 12:58

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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

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Submitted by Peter M. on Wed, 03/04/2024 - 06:32

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Hello again Tony,

Yes, I think that's a good summary.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

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Submitted by Tony_M on Wed, 03/04/2024 - 13:08

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Hello Peter,

Thanks for being a huge help.

Tony

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Submitted by miss.jenny on Tue, 13/02/2024 - 15:18

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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

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Submitted by Peter M. on Wed, 14/02/2024 - 06:12

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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

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Submitted by howtosay_ on Wed, 29/11/2023 - 01:16

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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!!!

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Submitted by Peter M. on Wed, 29/11/2023 - 07:09

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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

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Submitted by janice08 on Tue, 12/09/2023 - 22:11

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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

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Submitted by Peter M. on Wed, 13/09/2023 - 06:07

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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:

They cannot leave under any circumstances

> Under no circumstances can they leave.

Here we change the words order and use inversion to create a more
formal style. I would see 'in which' as something similar.

Peter