Task: underline the relative clause

1/ A king is a person who rules the country.

2/ A dinosaur is an animal that lived a long time ago.

3/ A bank is a place where you go to get some money.

We use relative clauses to give additional information about something (a noun) without starting another sentence.

Usually we use these relative pronouns:1/ who (a person)2/ which (a thing)3/ that (a person or a thing)4/ where (a place)5/ whose (posesion)

6/ why (reason)7/ when (time)

A princess A frog A museum A mug A library A

newspaper A plane A flower

Is a girl who wears a beautiful dress, lives in a castle and will marry a prince

Points to the particular person / thingEx. The person who brought us the

coffee had very nice eyes.The house where she lives is very far. Has no commas!!! Relative pronouns (not always

obligatory):1/ who2/ which3/ that

In defining relative clauses we might drop the relative pronoun completely:

if the subject of defining clause is an object of main clause

Ex. The book (which) I bought is not very good.

The boy (who/whom) we met yesterday was Alice’s brother.

1/ This is the house ______ my parents want to buy.

2/ Who was the girl _____ I saw you talking to?

3/ What do you call the people ____ live in Scotland?

4/ The postcard ______ I send you was written on the summit of Ben Nevis.

5/ The school ______ I study is called MG.

Give us only further information about something

Do not influence the meaning of the sentence

We can leave them out completely We use commas!!!Ex. John Grisham, who writes about

legal things, is my favourite author.

Relative pronouns:1/ who2/ which

In non-defining relative clauses the relative pronoun must be always present!!!

1/ My students who never do their homework will fail the exam.

2/ Valencia, which is Spain's third largest city, is on the

Mediterranean coast.

3/ That dog whose bone you took is going to bite your leg off.

4/ They want to show me their new car they bought in Germany.

5/ The tree in front of my house, which I used to climb as a child,

had to be cut down.

WHAT vs WHICH

WHAT is not a relative pronoun We cannot say:Ex. Tell me something what I do not

know.

We must say:Ex. Tell me something that I do not know.

Relative clauses with who, which, that as subject can be replaced with a participle:

Ex. I told you about the strange guy who lives next door.

I told you about the strange guy living next door.