Meaning
All subordinate clauses (aka embedded clauses) serve a particular role within their host clause, which is typically the main clause of the sentence. In the case of Relative Clauses, they generally act like adjectives modifying a noun phrase from the clause in which they are embedded. Consider the following examples (the Relative Clause is bold, and the linker is underlined):
- “This is the street where the starlet grew up.”
- “The founder and CEO is Mrs. Watts, who started the business in her garage.”
The two Relative Clauses provide more information about parts of their corresponding main clauses; the first modifies the noun ‘street’, while the second modifies the noun ‘Mrs. Watts’.
Insights to English uses the term key noun to refer to the noun in the main clause that is referred to and modified by the Relative Clause.
Like any modifier, a Relative Clause can either be essential or non-essential to the meaning of the sentence.
- The first is an example of a restrictive Relative Clause, also called ‘essential’ or ‘defining’; it completes the meaning of the main clause by specifying or defining the key noun ‘street’.
- The second is an example of a non-restrictive Relative Clause, also called ‘non-essential’ or ‘non-defining’; the main clause is understandable without this modifier, so the Relative Clause simply adds more information by describing the key noun ‘Mrs. Watts’.
Relative Clauses behave much like adjectives, which also either specify/define their referent nouns (essential) or merely describe them (non-essential).
While the vast majority of Relative Clauses reference a specific noun in their main clause, the occasional Relative Clause references a verb phrase or the main clause as a whole. Consider “I trekked all the way to the top of the mountain, which was exhausting!” In this case, ‘which’ does not refer to the mountain or any other noun, but rather the entire experience of trekking.
Structure
Relative Linkers
The Roles of Relative Linkers
The crux of a Relative Clause is its Relative Linker (aka the Relative Subordinator or ‘relativizer’). These are sometimes called relative pronouns by English teachers, though this term is confusing since these linkers aren’t just pronouns; they may also be determiners or adverbs.
What makes Relative Linkers special is that they do more than simply link two clauses together, the way most other conjunctions do; they serve an important role in the structure and meaning of the Relative Clause while referring back to something in the main clause. Let’s return to the two examples above:
- ‘where’ represents ‘the street’. If that Relative Clause stood on its own (was not embedded in the main clause), it might look something like: “The starlet grew up on this street.”
- ‘who’ represents ‘Mrs. Watts’. If that Relative Clause stood on its own (was not embedded in the main clause), it might look something like: “Mrs. Watts started the business in her garage.”
In summary, Relative Linkers: a) link the two clauses together, b) refer back to a key noun in the main clause, and c) play a syntactic and semantic role in the Relative Clause.
The List of Relative Linkers
There are only a handful of Relative Linkers, and there’s a heavy overlap between these and interrogative ‘WH’ words. While the generally refer back to nouns, the appropriate Relative Linker should be selected based on its role (pronoun, adverb, or determiner) within the Relative Clause.
- who (pronoun) — for people, or occasionally animals
- if in an object (rather than subject) position, we might use whom instead
- which (pronoun) — for objects, ideas, emotions, organizations, events, places, times, or situations
- this replaces what for corresponding interrogatives
- where (adverb) — for places
- when (adverb) — for times
- whose (determiner) — as a possessive
- that* (pronoun) — can replace who(m) or which for Restrictive Relative Clauses
- [null linker]* — can replace who(m) or which for Restrictive Relative Clauses
- also called the ‘zero’ relativizer
* Note that that and the null linker (which simply means we don’t use any word in the place of a linker) can only be used for Restrictive Relative Clauses.
Furthermore, there are a few relative linkers that are only used in legal speech and other highly formal language, or are otherwise archaic. These include wherefore (meaning ‘why’), whereby (meaning ‘how’), whence (meaning ‘from where’), and whither (meaning ‘to where’).
Lead-Ins
Relative Linkers are the heads of their clauses, which means they both define the role of the clause and usually come at the start. However, there are a couple ways that certain words (let’s call them lead-ins) can precede the relative linkers.
Preposition Lead-Ins
When the linker ‘whom’ or ‘which’ represents a key noun that would belong within a prepositional phrase in the Relative Clause, that preposition should also be included. Traditional grammarians would argue that the preposition needs to remain in front of its noun/pronoun, which means that the preposition should be the first part of the Relative Clause.
- eg: “Juanita was the last woman to whom the bachelor gave a rose.”
- eg: “This is the tomb in which the king was buried.”
Lead-Ins of Amount
By default, a Relative Clause refers to the key noun in its entirety. However, some Relative Clauses refer to only a portion of the key noun. In these cases, the clauses include pre-determiners to specify amounts. Such pre-determiners (such as ‘all’, ‘some’, ‘many’, ‘either’, ‘half’, ‘twelve’, etc.) plus ‘of’ should precede pronoun Relative Linkers.
- eg: “These are my friends, some of whom you’ve met before.”
- eg: “She has twenty-one dresses, five of which are black.”
These pre-determiner lead-ins only work for non-restrictive clauses.
The Embedded Clause
A Relative Clause is still a clause, meaning it must have a subject and a predicate (which at the very least includes a verb). Sometimes, a pronoun Relative Linker can serve as the subject, while other times it’s an object, in which case some other noun should be the subject.
Relative Clauses should be structured like standard declarative clauses with one exception: regardless of the role it serves, the Relative Linker phrase should always come at the front of the Relative Clause. This usually means that the Relative Linker itself is the very first word of the clause, but their phrases may include a preposition or a noun possession. Let’s look at a few examples.
- as a standalone clause: “Moira was in the hospital.”
- as a Relative Clause: “We went to see Moira, who was in the hospital.”
- as a standalone clause: “I’m looking after Pedro’s cat while he’s away.”
- as a Relative Clause: “I got a call from Pedro, whose cat I’m looking after while he’s away.”
- as a standalone clause: “He was in raised in that house.”
- as a Relative Clause (a): “The house where he was raised was demolished long ago.”
- as a Relative Clause (b): “The house in which he was raised was demolished long ago.”
- as a Relative Clause (c): “The house which he was raised in was demolished long ago.”
Notice how the word order of the clause changes depending on whether it’s standalone (as a simple sentence) or a Relative Clause.
Also note how there are sometimes multiple options, as with Example 3 above. There is little difference between ‘where’ and ‘in which’; it’s largely a matter of the speaker’s preference. Meanwhile, option (b) may be considered more formal than the (c) option common is casual speech.
Finally, consider the placement of the embedded clause within the main clause. The Relative Clause should always come immediately after the key noun that the Relative Linker references. In the three examples above, that key noun is ‘Moira’, ‘Pedro’, and ‘the house’, respectively. This means that the Relative Clause might interrupt — or come in the middle of — the main clause (as with Example 3 above).
Restrictive vs. Non-Restrictive
A Relative Clause is restrictive (or defining or essential) if it provides information crucial to complete the meaning of the main clause. Consider the example sentence, “This is the street where the starlet grew up.” The main clause, “This is the street,” is perfect in its grammar, yet the meaning of the statement is incomplete (for most contexts). What is meant by ‘the street’? It’s certainly not the only street, so which street is it? The Relative Clause “where the starlet grew up,” provides information essential to the comprehension of the overall sentence. Thus, this embedded clause is restrictive.
Contrast this with a sentence like “The founder and CEO is Mrs. Watts, who started the business in her garage.” Here, the main clause “The founder and CEO is Mrs. Watts,” is perfectly coherent on it’s own. So while the Relative Clause “who started the business in her garage,” provides additional information, that info is not essential to complete the meaning of the main clause. This is then a non-restrictive embedded clause.
When the key noun is modified by a superlative adjective, it’s more likely to be followed by a restrictive clause than a non-restrictive one.
Relative Clauses play by slightly different rules depending on whether the clause is restrictive or not:
| Restrictive Relatives | Non-Restrictive Relatives |
|---|---|
|
essential to the meaning (but not the structure) of the main clause |
not essential to the meaning (nor the structure) of the main clause |
|
not set apart from the main clause by any punctuation |
set apart from the main clause with punctuation (usually commas) |
|
features any linker, including that or the null linker |
features any ‘wh’ linker, but NOT that or the null linker |
|
can’t include lead-ins of amount |
can include lead-ins of amount |
Non-restrictive Relative Clauses are set apart by punctuation. There should be a punctuation mark after the key noun but before the Relative Linker. If the embedded clause comes in the middle of (interrupts) the main clause, then there should also be a punctuation mark after the Relative Clause before the main clause resumes. Commas are the most common punctuation marks, but dashes, parentheses, or brackets may be used instead. For example:
- “The founder and CEO is Mrs. Watts (who started the business in her garage).”
- “We went to see Moira, who was in the hospital.”
- “Pedro — whose cat I’m looking after — is on vacation this week.”
By contrast, restrictive Relative Clauses do not have any punctuation separating them from their main clauses.
Usage
Most Relative Clauses could easily be separated from their main clauses and converted into simple sentences. One of our previous examples might be instead expressed as:
“The founder and CEO is Mrs. Watts. Mrs. Watts started the business in her garage.”
But this feels a little bit clunky. The benefit of complex sentences is that they allow speakers to communicate their ideas smoothly in a manner that more closely reflects train-of-thought.
The regular use of complex sentences, including those with Relative Clauses, is a mark of language proficiency.
Colloquialisms
- Although ‘whom’ is considered the correct variant of ‘who’ when used as a direct or indirect object or when completing a prepositional phrase, many modern English speakers rarely if ever use ‘whom’. Instead, ‘who’ is used for any representation of a person, animal, or personified noun, regardless of its role within a clause.
- When prepositions are required to accompany Relative Linkers, many modern English speakers simply place them at the end of the Relative Clause.
Advanced Concepts
Whether to Include Prepositions
Sometimes they key noun would fit into a prepositional phrase within the Relative Clause, where that phrase serves as a modifier (much like an adverb). This often grants the speaker two options:
- use a pronoun Relative Linker (like which or whom) in place of the noun, in which case the rest of that prepositional phrase (often just the proposition itself) still needs to be taken into account.
- use a adverb Relative Linker (like when or where) in place of the entire phrase, which includes not just the noun, but the meaning of the proposition as well… in which case, the preposition no longer needs to be stated.
Let’s take a look at an example of the same basic sentence applied with these two variations. “He was travelling abroad during that year,” becomes, as a Relative Clause:
- “That was the year during which he was travelling abroad.”
- which represents ‘that year’
- “That was the year when he was travelling abroad.”
- when represents ‘during that year’
Notice that the preposition ‘during’ still needs to be included alongside the pronoun which, although it does not need to be voiced alongside the adverb when (since when includes ‘during’ in its meaning).
In traditional grammar, any included prepositions should still come before their pronoun objects (for which or whom). However, in modern casual speech, shorted prepositions like in, at, to, etc. are sometimes placed after the verb string, perhaps even at the very end of the clause. Consider these two examples:
- “She is a friend with whom I have shared my secrets.”
- “She is a friend whom I have shared my secrets with.”
While most grammarians consider the former version to be correct, the later version is becoming increasingly more acceptable in some dialects.
Fused Relatives
Strictly speaking, Relative Clauses both reference an antecedent noun in the main clause (like a pronoun might) and modify that referent noun (like an adjective might).
There is another type of construction for which the Relative Clause is the noun in the main clause. Instead of referring to and modifying an earlier noun, a restrictive Relative Clause is said to be ‘fused’ with the noun in the main clause so that they are one and the same. For this reason, this construction is typically called fused Relative Clause (sometimes a ‘nominal’ or ‘free’ Relative Clause).
For example:
- as a fused Relative [restrictive]: “That was when he was travelling abroad.”
- Compare to: “That was the year when he was travelling abroad.”
- The Relative Clause is fused with ‘the year’.
- The meanings of these two variations are virtually identical.
- as a fused Relative [non-restrictive]: “We went to see who was in the hospital.”
- Compare to: “We went to see Moira, who was in the hospital.”
- The Relative Clause is fused with ‘Moira’.
- There is a difference in meaning: In the fused version, it seems the subject did not know the identity of the person in the hospital (whereas in the standard Relative Clause, the subject knew it was Moira).
The linker for fused Relative Clauses may be any of the ‘wh’ linkers, though what is typically used more that which. Fused Relatives might also feature -ever linkers, as in ‘whoever’, ‘whenever’, etc. The null linker and that are generally not featured in Fused Relatives.
While Fused Relatives look just like standard Relative Clauses, they behave differently and play a different role. They do not modify nouns like Relative Clauses do, but instead act like the nouns themselves. Therefore, while these embedded clauses look like Relative Clauses, they are actually a variation on Content Clauses.
Reduced Relatives
A Reduced Relative is a clause that does not feature a Relative Linker (or it has the null linker) and in which the auxiliary verbs are missing from the verb string. A typical Reduced Relative has its main verb in a participle form. For example:
- as a full Relative Clause: “You walk out of there with your head that is held high.”
- as a Reduced Relative: “You walk out of there with your head held high.”
- as a full Relative Clause: “Most people who are walking down this street have dark secrets.”
- as a Reduced Relative: “Most people walking down this street have dark secrets.”
In these examples, the Reduced Relatives are both less awkward to say and more comprehensible for fluent English speakers.
It may be argued that Reduced Relative are technically no longer clauses, but instead are Participial Phrases.
Cleft Sentences
Complex sentences are a way to combine two idea into a single sentence. But we can also do the reverse: break a single idea into two separate clauses. The result is called a cleft sentence. For example:
- “I love you.” → “It’s you whom I love.”
- “We won’t begin the feast until 1:30.” → “It’s not until 1:30 that we’ll begin the feast.”
See how 1) the original subject and verb string are placed at the end of the sentence, 2) a relative linker like who or that is placed at the front of that subject and verb string, turning it into a Relative Clause, and 3) the original subject and verb string are replaced by “it is/was” at the very front of the sentence.
The purpose of cleft sentences is to rearrange the order, typically for emphasis. For instance, someone might say, “It’s you whom I love,” in response to the listener mistakenly believing that the speaker loves someone else.
Relative Clauses used in cleft sentences are restrictive.
Teaching Tips
One Piece at a Time
Relative Linkers First
The crux of Relative Clauses is their Relative Linkers. These are so important because they effectively play three distinct roles in these complex sentences (they connect two clauses; they refer back to an antecedent noun in the main clause; and they serve functional roles in the embedded clause). But for this reason, they are also probably the trickiest part of Relative Clauses. Make sure learners are fairly comfortable with Relative Linkers before moving on to the rest of the structure.
Some coursebooks will have an earlier lesson (perhaps at the Pre-Intermediate / Lower Intermediate level) that focuses exclusively on Relative Linkers, like having a mostly-complete complex sentence written out so that all students need to do is fill in a blank for the appropriate linker.
Restrictive vs. Non-Restrictive Later
The distinctions of restrictive vs. non-restrictive clauses are important, but they can feel overwhelming to learners still getting the hang of Relative Clauses. When first teaching students to create complex sentences with Relative Clauses, we’d recommend doing only non-restrictive (or only restrictive, if you prefer) to narrow the structural considerations that students have to deal with.
Step by Step
One way that Relative Clauses are taught is by starting with two simple sentences and combining their clauses into one complex sentence with two clauses. This might look confusing if all students see is the starting point and the end result. We recommend working through the process, breaking it down into four or so steps.
If you’re not sure the best way to do this, you’re in luck! Insights to English has already developed this method for you! Check out our How to Teach Relative Clauses video for the full breakdown.
Insider Access
Visit our How to Teach Relative Clauses page — or the How to Teach Advanced Relative Clauses page — on www.insightstoEnglish.com for a demonstrational video, bonus notes, printouts, a slideshow for your class, practice activities, and more.
Further Reading
Encyclopedia Pages
Insights Articles
- project: People-First Language
- project: Different Perspectives
- Writing with Colors
- Context Matters
Intermediate Topics
CEFR Levels B1-B2: Pre-Intermediate to Upper Intermediate courses
