English Relative Clauses
Relative clauses in the English language are formed principally by means of relative pronouns. The basic relative pronouns are who, which, and that (who also has the derived forms whom and whose). Various grammatical and stylistic rules exist for determining which of the relative pronouns can be used in a given instance. In some cases (as in "This is the man I saw"), it is possible to omit the relative pronoun entirely.
English also uses free relative clauses, which have no antecedent – these can be formed with the pronoun what (as in "I like what you've done"), as well as with certain other forms such as who and whoever.
Read more about English Relative Clauses: Overview, Status of that, Free Relative Clauses, Non-finite Relative Clauses, Adverbial Types
Famous quotes containing the words english and/or relative:
“I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my death-bed could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to her soil. I would not even feed her worms if I could help it.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“And since the average lifetime—the relative longevity—is far greater for memories of poetic sensations than for those of heartbreaks, since the very long time that the grief I felt then because of Gilbert, it has been outlived by the pleasure I feel, whenever I wish to read, as in a sort of sundial, the minutes between twelve fifteen and one o’clock, in the month of May, upon remembering myself chatting ... with Madame Swann under the reflection of a cradle of wisteria.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)