Hey!
Can you tell me about relative clauses?
Sure.
First, do you know what clauses are?
Mmm … not really.
Basically, if you put a bunch of words together
and it sounds like a sentence on its own, then it’s a clause.
So is a clause and a sentence the same thing?
A clause by itself can be a sentence,
but you can also put two or more clauses together in one large sentence.
In fact, one way to do that is with relative clauses.
Okay.
Why’s it called a ‘relative’ clause?
Because one clause is related to the other.
Kinda like in a family?
Yeah.
You and your cousin have grandparents in common, so you’re related to your cousin.
In the same way, a relative clause has a word or phrase in common
with the main clause of its sentence.
Okay.
Can you give me an example?
How about this sentence:
"I got tickets to see Vanessa Jones, who sings like an angel.”
We’ve got two clauses here.
What’s the first one?
“I got tickets to see Vanessa Jones”.
And “who sings like an angel” is the other clause.
Both clauses talk about Vanessa Jones, so they have that in common.
But “who sings like an angel” can’t be a sentence by itself.
Well, I guess it could be if it was a question.
Right, that’s a good point.
‘Who’ is a pronoun, kinda like ‘we’ or ‘him’ or ‘this’.
‘Who’ is a relative pronoun, which we use for questions and for …
… relative clauses?
Right!
What are the common question words?
‘Who’ ‘What’, ‘Where’, and ‘When’.
Good.
Quick note: for relative clauses, we need to change ‘what’ to ‘which’.
Okay, but what about this clause?
Like I said, ‘who’ is a pronoun, so let’s replace it with another pronoun for the singer.
“She sings like an angel.”
Yeah, that could be a sentence by itself.
Or we can replace the pronouns with the noun they represent.
“Vanessa Jones sings like an angel.”
So we have two good clauses here, each in their own sentence.
“I got tickets to see Vanessa Jones.”
“Vanessa Jones sings like an angel.”
Or we could put them together into one sentence.
“I got tickets to see Vanessa Jones, who sings like an angel.”
Let’s take a look at how we can put clauses together.
We’ll use a different pair.
“We watched Toy Story at Dave’s house last night.”
“Toy Story was the first Pixar film.”
Are these two sentences related?
Yeah, they’re both talking about Toy Story.
Right.
Our first step in putting the clauses together is to find out the noun they have in common.
Let’s call it ‘[star]’ instead of ‘the noun that both clauses have in common’ every time.
Works for me.
The next step is to decide which is your main clause, and which is your relative clause.
So, how do we do that?
Sometimes it doesn’t really matter.
But often the main clause should fit better with the context.
Are we talking about what you did last night, or are we talking about Pixar?
Oh, okay, I see.
So the relative clause is less important than the main clause?
Kinda.
The relative clause usually gives us more information about something in the main clause.
Okay, that makes sense.
But sometimes, the sentence sounds better or worse depending on which clause is relative.
Why don’t we try both ways, and see how they sound.
Alright.
So, let’s say “Toy Story was the first Pixar film” is our relative clause this time.
Alright.
Put it after [star] in the main clause.
But ‘Toy Story’ is in the middle of the sentence.
If we put the relative clause there, it’s inside the main clause.
That’s fine.
Think of it like a sandwich.
Okay.
The third step is to remove [star] from the relative clause.
We just … take it out?
We’ll replace it with a relative pronoun.
That’s step four.
What’s the best pronoun for [star]?
Toy Story is a movie, and we should use ‘which’ for things like that.
Good.
Place it at the beginning of the green clause.
And that’s all?
Yeah.
What’s our final sentence?
“We watched Toy Story, which was the first Pixar film, at Dave’s house last night.”
I noticed that you paused before and after the relative clause, which is good.
When we write them down, we put commas in those places.
Gotcha.
Now let’s go back to step two, and we’ll make the opposite choice.
The top clause is the relative one now.
What do we do with it?
Put it after “Toy Story” in the bottom clause, but before “was the first Pixar film.”
Right.
Now we remove [star] from the green clause,
and then we add ‘who’, ‘which’, ‘where’, or ‘when’.
We add ‘which’, just like last time.
And put it before “we watched”?
That’s right.
And we’re done!
“Toy Story, which we watched at Dave’s house last night, was the first Pixar film.”
Both sentences sounded good, I think.
Yeah, I think so, too.
So I guess it depends on the context this time.
Right.
But if doesn’t sound correct for some other clauses you’re working on,
try changing which clause is the relative one.
Gotcha.
What happens if I put the relative clause in the wrong spot?
Then we get a misplaced modifier,
which means you’re giving information about the wrong thing.
Let’s try this example.
“My friend Greg has a pet rabbit, who is six feet tall.”
The relative clause should come just after [star], or what the two clauses have in common.
So here, it looks like both clauses are talking about the rabbit.
The rabbit is six feet tall?
Does that sound right to you?
No.
No. Then who is six feet tall?
“My friend Greg”.
Ah.
Then let’s say, “My friend Greg, who is six feet tall, has a pet rabbit.”
Ugh, but it’s not as funny that way.
True.
Anything else I should know?
Yeah.
There’s another relative pronoun, which we use with possessives.
If we’re talking about Steve in the main clause but Steve’s hat in the relative clause,
we say ‘whose’ hat.
Okay, that makes sense.
One more thing: We’ve talked about the common link between the clauses being nouns,
but they can also be verb phrases.
Like what?
Take this example:
“Penny always picks her nose, which is really gross.”
Ew, that is so gross.
Yeah.
Well, (you know) she’s five years old, so...
Anyway, what does ‘which’ refer to?
Her nose?
Is her nose really gross?
No.
Well, I don’t know.
I haven’t seen her nose.
Then what is probably “really gross”?
Picking her nose.
Yeah, it’s not just one thing, it’s the whole situation.
Okay.
So when a relative clause refers to a situation, we use ‘which’ as the pronoun?
Usually.
Gotcha.
So … when do we use relative clauses?
Whenever you want to put thoughts together in one sentence.
Oh right, like you said before,
the relative clause usually gives us more information about something in the main clause.
Right.
Relative clauses let you express all that at once.
Cool.
Another reason is to change the flow of a paragraph, or of your speech, or whatever.
If you have a bunch of short sentences, it sounds very choppy.
I see.
There’s a lot of starting and stopping.
Right.
So it helps to put some of the sentences together.
This can give you some variation in the rhythm.
And when your words flow together more, you sound more natural.
Right, exactly.
So when you want to write or sound smoother,
consider using relative clauses.
Definitely will!