RELATIVE CLAUSE

Relative ClauseRelative clauses are a special class

of dependent clause (also called "subordinate clause") that serve to modify a noun. In English,

as in most other Indo-European languages, relative clauses are often introduced by

a relative pronoun one of the wh- words "who", "whom", "whose", "what", or "which", or by that.Reduced relative clauses, on the other hand,

have no relative pronoun introducing them. The example below contrasts an English non-

reduced relative clause and reduced relative clause.

Relatives Clauses:

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

Relative Pronounsrelative

pronouns use example

who subject or object pronoun for people

I told you about the woman who lives next door.

whichsubject or object pronoun for animals and things

Do you see the cat which is lying on the roof?

whosepossession for people animals and things

Do you know the boy whose mother is a nurse?

where

subject or object pronoun for palace

This is the station where Emily met James.

• 25 December is the day ..................... children in Great Britain get their Christmas presents.

• A famine was the reason ..................... so many Irish people emigrated to the USA in the 19th century.

• A greengrocer's is a shop ..................... you can buy vegetables.

• The day ..................... I arrived was very nice.

• A horror film was the reason ..................... I couldn't sleep last night.

when

when

where

when

why

Use the correct Relative Pronoun

The hotel _________ we stayed was very good for the price

The hotel WHERE we stayed was very good for the price

The books, ______ I´d ordered over the internet, took nearly three weeks to arrive

The books, WHICH* I´d ordered over the internet, took nearly three weeks to arrive

My parents, ________ were born in north Wales, moved to London to find work

My parents, WHO* were born in north

Wales, moved to London to find work

The employee to __________ you refer is no longer working here.

The employee to WHOM* you refer is no longer working here

My neighbour, __________ son is studying in Germany, is quite impolite.

My neighbour, WHOSE son is studying in Germany, is quite impolite.

Reduced relative clause

Reduced Relative Clause

A reduced relative clause is a relative clause that is not marked by

an overt complementizer (such as that). Reduced relative clauses often give rise to ambiguity or garden path effects, and have been a common topic of psycholinguistic study, especially

in the field of sentence processing.

John kicked the

ball

the ball was kicke

d

reduced object relative passive clause

Reduced Relative Passive Clause

 (so called because the noun being modified is the direct object of the relative clause, and the relative clause is in passive voice)

Reduced Relative Clause

• While reduced relative clauses are not the only structures that create garden path sentences in English (other forms of garden path sentences include those caused by lexical ambiguity, or words that can have more than one meaning), they are the "classic" example of garden path sentences.

Example

People who litter will have to pay a fine

People littering will have to pay a fine

My friends who were living in dorms had a very hard time

My friends living in dorms had a very hard time

THANKS YOUR ATTENTION