Relative clauses
Relative clauses
Harper Lee is the woman who (that) wrote To Kill a Mockingbird.
I'm looking for a book which (that) teaches you how to relax.
That's the house where I was born.
Is Frank the man whose brother plays for Manchester United?
It's a tree whose leaves change colour in autumn.
I've just had a text from the girl (who/ that) I met on the flight to Paris.
This is the phone (which / that) I bought yesterday.
This painting, which was painted in 1860, is worth millions of pounds.
Last week I visited my aunt Jane, who's nearly 90 years old.
Burford, where my grandfather was born, is a beautiful little town.
My neighbour, whose son goes to my son's school, has just remarried.
We use a defining relative clause (= relative pronoun + verb phrase) to give essential information about a person, place or thing.
We use the relative pronoun who for people, which for things / animals and where for places.
We can use that instead of who or which.
We use whose to mean 'of who' or 'of which'.
In some relative clauses, the verb after who, which or that has a different subject, e.g.
She's the girl who I met on the train (the subject of met is I).
In these clauses, who, which or that can be omitted.
She's the girl I met on the train.
where and whose can never be omitted.
NOT
Is that the woman dog barks?
We can't omit who / which / that if it's the same subject in both clauses.
NOT
Julia's the woman works in the office with me.
We use a non-defining relative clause to give extra (often non-essential information) in a sentence. If this clause is omitted, the sentence still makes sense.
This painting, which was painted in 1860, is worth millions of pounds.
Non-defining relative clauses must go between commas (or a comma and a full stop).
In these clauses, we can't leave out the relative pronoun.
In these clauses, we can't use that instead of who / which.
NOT
This painting, that was painted in 1860, is worth millions of pounds.
Exercise a
Minneapolis is the city where Prince was born.
Downing Street, where the British Prime Minister lives, is in central London.
The sandwich which you made me for lunch was delicious.
The woman lived here before us was a writer.
David Bowie, whose songs inspired us for nearly 50 years, died in 2016.
My computer is a lot faster than the one which used to have.
The Mona Lisa, which has been demaged several times, is now displayed behind glass.
Look! That's the woman whose dog bit me last week.
On our last holiday we visited Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare was born.
We all went to the match except Angela, who doesn't like football.
That man who you saw at the party was my boyfriend!
That's the park where I learned to ride a bike.
Exercise b
Caroline, who lives next door to me, is beautiful.
This is the place where John crashed his car.
The castle that we visited yesteday was amazing.
Beijing, which is one of the world's biggest cities, has a population of over 25 million.
Adele's 25, which was released in 2015, is one of the best-selling albums of the last ten years.
These are the shoes which I'm wearing to the wedding tomorrow.
Sally and Joe, who got married last year, are expecting their first baby.