Презентация на тему RELATIVE CLAUSES

RELATIVE CLAUSES

• 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.

RELATIVE CLAUSES

Defining

Describing

Defining relative clauses

• As the name suggests, these clauses give essential information to define or identify the person or thing we are talking about. Obviously, this is only necessary if there is more than one person or thing involved.
• Punctuation Commas are not used in defining relative clauses.

• Relative pronouns The following relative pronouns are used in defining relative clauses:

Subject

Person

who/that

Object

Thing

Place

which/that

Possessive

who/whom/that

whose

Time

which/that

Reason

where

whose

when

why

Examples:

• I told you about the woman who lives next door.
• I was invited by the professor whom I met at the conference.
• I don’t like the table that stands in the kitchen.
• Do you know the boy whose mother is a nurse?

Describing Clauses

• Describing clauses are always preceded by a comma (and followed by a comma when the clause occurs in the middle of a sentence).

Defining Clauses

Describing Clauses

My aunt who is from Athens is coming to visit me next week.

Meaning:

My aunt, who is from, is Athens, coming to visit me next week.

Meaning:

I have a number of aunts. Therefore

I have to specify which one is coming

I have only one aunt. She is coming to visit me next week. By the way, you might also be interested to know that she lives in Athens. Because I have only one aunt, I am only describing her here. I do not need to specify which aunt she is.

to visit me next week, not merely describe her. It’s the aunt from Athens who is coming visit.

relative pronoun

use

who

for people

which

for animals and things

which

referring to a whole sentence

whose

possession for people animals and things

whom

object pronoun for people, especially in non-defining relative clauses (in defining relative clauses we colloquially prefer who)

that

for people, animals and things in defining relative clauses (who or which are also possible)

• Grammarians love to argue about which pronouns belong in what kind of relative clause. However, for our purposes, the rules are fairly simple. The chart below gives you a quick guide to the pronouns to use in various situations.

relative adverb

meaning

when

use

in/on which

where

in/at which

refers to a time expression

why

refers to a place

for which

refers to a reason