This document provides information about relative clauses, including how they are used and formed. Relative clauses add information about a person or thing already mentioned to identify or distinguish them. They combine information into one sentence without repeating words. To form a relative clause, the information to identify what is being referred to comes first, followed by the relative pronoun (who, which, that, whose) and additional identifying information. The relative pronoun takes the role of the person or thing in the additional information.

1. RELATIVE CLAUSES
• Relative clauses describe and provide
information about something or someone that
we have usually already specified.
– I like working with students who appreciate
what I do.
• We use relative clauses in order to identify
things or people and to distinguish them from
other similar things.

2. USE
• We use relative clauses to give
additional information about something
without starting another sentence.
• By combining sentences with a
relative clause, your text becomes
more fluent and you can avoid
repeating certain words.

3. How to Form Relative Clauses
Think the next situation.
A woman is talking to Tom.
You want to know who she is and
ask a friend if he knows her.
>>You can say:
A woman is talking to Tom.
Do you know the girl?

4. That sounds complicated, doesn't
it?
>> It would be easier with a relative
clause: you put both pieces of
information into one sentence.
Start with the most important thing
– you want to know who the
woman is.
Do you know the woman …

5. As your friend cannot know which
woman you are talking about, you
need to put in the additional
information – the woman is talking
to Tom.
>Use „the woman“ only in the first
part of the sentence,
> in the second part replace it with
the relative pronoun (for people,
use the relative pronoun “who”).

6. So the final sentence is:
Do you know the woman
who is talking to Tom?

7. Where do they come in
sentences?
• They usually come immediately after what
they qualify
– People who know different foreign
languages make better language teachers.
• When the relative pronoun is the subject of the
relative clause the order is subject+verb+object
– He showed me the rocks which he had
collected.
• When the relative pronoun is the object the order is
object+subject+verb
– The bus came at last, which was an
enormous relief.

8. WHO
• subject or object pronoun for people
1. Subject: I told you about the woman who lives next
door.
2. Object: (Pronoun Omission)
Mary is the girl (who/whom) we met at the party.

9. WHICH
• subject or object pronoun for animals
and things
1. Subject: Do you see the cat which is lying on the roof?
2. Object: (Pronoun Omission) :Have you seen the book
(which ) I put on this table?

10. THAT
• subject or object pronoun for people,
animals and things in defining relative
clauses (who or which are also possible)
1. Subject: I don’t like the table that /which stands in the
kitchen.
2. Object: (Pronoun Omission):Pronoun Omission):This is the sweater (that/
which) I bought on Saturday.

11. WHOSE
• possession for people animals and
things. WHOSE cannot be omitted.
Do you know the girl whose mother is a nurse?