Finite Types
Relative clauses are a special class of dependent clause (also called "subordinate clause") that usually serve to modify a noun. In English, similarly to most other Indo-European languages, relative clauses are often introduced by one of the relative pronouns who, whom, whose, what, or which, or by the word that, which can be analyzed either as a relative pronoun or as a relativizer (complementizer)—see English relative clauses.
Reduced relative clauses, on the other hand, have no relative pronoun or complementizer introducing them. The example below contrasts an English non-reduced relative clause and reduced relative clause.
| Relative clause: | The man | who/whom/that I saw | was big. |
| Reduced relative clause: | The man | I saw | was big. |
Because of the omission of function words, the use of reduced relative clauses, particularly when nested, can give rise to sentences which, while theoretically correct grammatically, are not readily parsed by listeners. A well-known example put forward by linguists is "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo", which contains the reduced relative clause Buffalo buffalo buffalo (meaning "which buffalo from Buffalo (do) buffalo").
Read more about this topic: Reduced Relative Clause
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