V4 grammar revision - Relative clauses

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Grammar revision

Unit 9: Relative clauses

Relative clauses

We can use relative clauses to join two English sentences together, often to give more information about something.

I bought a new car. It is very fast.

→ I bought a new car that is very fast.

We use relative pronouns to add these sentences together. They are:

who / which / that / whom (to who) / whose (possessive) / when / where 

There are 2 types of relative clauses: the defining relative clause and the non-defining relative clause

Defining relative clause

A defining relative clause tells which noun (zelf. nw) we are talking about:

I like the woman who lives next door.

If I don't say 'who lives next door', then we don't know which woman I mean.

• We do not put commas at the beginning and end of a defining relative clause.
  
• We can interchange which and that for each other.
  
• Sometimes we can omit the relative pronoun. This often happens when the relative pronoun is not the subject of the sentence:
  She showed me photos of the gorillas (which/that) she had studied.
  She showed me photos of the gorillas which/that lived nearby. (subject belonging to 'lived')

Non-defining relative clause

A non-defining relative clause gives us extra information about something. 

I live in Oxford, which has some fantastic colleges.

Everybody knows where Oxford is, so 'which has some fantastic colleges' is extra information.

• We have to use a comma before and after the relative clause:
  
  London, which has always been located on the river Thames, is my favourite city to go shopping. 
• You cannot interchange 'which' and 'that' in this type of relative clause
• We cannot leave out the relative pronoun:
  
  My sister, who I live with, knows a lot about cars. = correct
  My sister, I live with, knows a lot about cars. = incorrect

The mountain ____ we climbed yesterday was the highest mountain in Britain!

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

Taylor has a new car, ____ is twice as big as his old one.

1. who
2. which
3. that

In which sentence can you delete 'who'?

1. The man who cleans my windows has gone into hospital.
2. The man who lives next to me is nearly eighty.
3. The man who I saw on the bus is my neighbour.

Which sentence is correct?

1. The new stadium, that can hold over 100,000 people, opened last week.
2. The new stadium, which can hold over 100,000 people, opened last week

That’s the shop ___ I bought my wedding ring.

1. which
2. that
3. (no word is needed here)
4. where

We walked as far as the waterfall, ____ we stopped for a picnic.

1. which
2. where
3. when

Which sentence needs the word 'who'?

1. Is that the woman ___ you work with?
2. Is that the woman ___ lives next door to your grandmother?
3. Is that the woman ___ Dan was talking about?

Combine to make relative clause:
People live in Scotland. They are called Scots.

We first went to Edinburgh. Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland.

Loch Ness is 37 km long. People know it for its friendly monster.

There we met an old man. He told us that he had seen Nessie.