Relative Pronouns, a la Shmoop.
Robin is having a difficult time with the love letter she's writing to her crush.
Should she say, "You are the man who I've adored since freshman year"...
...or, "You are the man that I've adored since freshman year"?
Yikes. Teenage love is hard enough. Does Robin really have to deal with grammar confusion, too?
The part of grammar that's throwing a wrench
into Robin's dreams of boyfriend bliss is called the relative pronoun.
No, relative pronouns aren't named after those family members of yours, who like to sit on
the front porch at sundown, strumming banjos and drinking moonshine.
Instead, relative pronouns are so named because they introduce relative clauses.
Let's break it down. A relative clause is a kind of dependent clause, meaning it modifies something...
...a word, a phrase, whatever...
...in the main clause of a sentence. Whatever item the relative clause is modifying is called an antecedent.
There are two types of relative clauses: restrictive relative clauses and non-restrictive relative
clauses. Let's start with the restrictive relative clause. This kind of clause has two characteristics...
...the relative pronoun introducing it is not separated from the main clause by a comma...
...and the restrictive clause supplies some bit of crucial information, without which
the sentence wouldn't make sense. Before we move on to some examples of restrictive
relative clauses, let's go over the relative pronouns we're likely to encounter.
They include "who", "whom", "whoever", "whomever", "whose", "that", and "which".
The words "what", "when", and "where" can also sometimes serve as relative pronouns.
Okay, time for some examples of restrictive relative clauses.
Say we have the sentence, "This is the guy." Um, okay. What guy are we talking about? Why
are we talking about him?
This is where the restrictive relative clause comes in: "This is the guy who has captured Robin's heart."
Here, the relative pronoun "who" is the subject of the restrictive relative clause.
And how do we know this is a restrictive relative clause?
There's no comma between "guy" and "who"...
...and the relative clause provides an essential piece of information; namely, that Robin is
crushing on this dude right here. A relative pronoun can also appear as the
object of a restrictive relative pronoun. However, we tend to strike this type of relative
pronoun from sentences as unnecessary.
For example, while we could write, "Robin's crush is wearing the cologne that she loves"...
...we don't need to include the "that" unless we're being formal...
...so our sentence can read, "Robin's crush is wearing the cologne she loves."
Say we have this sentence: "The heinous witch to whom Robin's crush is speaking is actually
his girlfriend."
We can ditch that "whom" like Robin wishes her beloved would ditch his girlfriend...
...so that our sentence reads, "The heinous witch Robin's crush is speaking to is actually
his girlfriend." Finally, the relative pronoun "whose" can
be used to indicate possession in a restrictive relative clause...
...as in, "The girl whose boyfriend Robin wants to steal found a burning bag of dog
poo on her doorstep yesterday."
Wow, Robin, you haven't even given your crush that letter yet. There's no need to declare
all-out war on his lady friend. On to relative pronouns in non-restrictive
relative clauses! Here, the relative pronoun is separated from the antecedent by a comma...
...most of the time...
...and the information contained within the relative clause is unimportant...
...unessential...
...inconsequential.
One more thing: non-restrictive relative clauses generally start with the relative pronoun
"which". A relative pronoun can serve as the subject
of a non-restrictive relative clause...
...as in this example: "Robin's love letter, which was twenty pages long, wouldn't fit
into her crush's locker."
A relative pronoun can also serve as the object of a non-restrictive relative clause...
...as in this example: "The letter, which Robin had worked so hard on, got majorly wrinkled
from her attempts to stuff it into the locker."
How do we know that these two examples include non-restrictive relative clauses? In both
cases, a comma appears between the relative pronoun "which" and the rest of the sentence...
...and the information in the non-restrictive relative clauses doesn't really matter.
We have just one more thing to say about relative pronouns.
When referring to people in restrictive clauses, we can use the relative pronouns "that" or "who"...
...so long as we're speaking informally. For example, while we could say "Robin is the
kind of person who obsesses over guys"...
...we could also say "Robin is the kind of person that obsesses over guys." Both ways
are correct.
However, if we're speaking formally about a particular person, we need to use the relative
pronoun "who".
For example, "The girl who is dating Robin's crush has wised up to Robin's activities."
And now that we've cleared up Robin's confusion regarding relative pronouns...
...we wish her good luck as she attempts to inform her crush of her undying devotion.
She's going to need it.