Writers use relative clauses when they want to add more information to their sentences without having to start new ones. This handout will help you understand what relative clauses are and how they are …

In formal English the preposition is placed before the relative pronoun, which must then be put into the form whom: The man to whom I spoke... In informal speech, however, it is more usual to move the …

Relative clauses modify things (nouns). That is, they are clauses (sentence units with subjects and predicates) relative to nouns. The information they provide can be either restrictive (necessary for …

THE SYNTAX OF RELATIVE CLAUSES Relative clauses play a hugely important role in analysing the structure of sentences. This book provides the first evidence that a unified analysis of the different …

Relative pronouns agree with their antecedents in number and gender but not necessarily in case. The case of the relative pronoun depends on its function within the relative clause (i.e., as subject, direct …

We don't use 'that' in non-defining relative clauses, so we need to use 'which' if the pronoun refers to a thing, and 'who' if it refers to a person. We can't drop the relative pronoun in this kind of clause, even …

If we leave out these relative clauses (My father still works. His car is broken.), the sentences remain grammatically correct and we know what father or car we are talking about.