It’s Professor Dave, let’s look at il quale.
We just learned about the relative pronouns “che” and “cui”, so let’s learn another.
Unlike the first two we learned, this one will be variable according to number and gender,
so it will have four forms.
This will mean the same thing as che or cui, and they are used frequently.
When in a subject role, this relative pronoun is less commonly used than che, but they are
found in many other situations, and they add a little more elegance to a sentence, especially
in writing.
So these are interchangeable, however there are times where quale will be preferred because
its variability can remove ambiguity from a sentence.
Here we aren’t sure to which person the relative “che” is referring.
Now that see that the pronoun is masculine, we know that it is referring to her male friend,
thus removing any ambiguity.
Here is another example.
Because we have la quale, we know it is la cugina that just turned twenty nine, and not Stefano.
Because we see la quale, we know it is the lady that lives nearby, not her son.
So now that we understand that this new relative pronoun has the same meaning of the ones we
learned prior, let’s look at some sentences that use this new one, with the other form
that will use cui listed immediately below, so that you can see both options.
Now let’s quickly look at a few examples where il quale is mandatory, as in the following
cases involving cardinal numbers or indefinites.
And lastly, the adverb “dove” often replaces phrases with quale in more casual conversation.
But, we can change “nella quale” to “dove”, and we end up with the same thing.
And with that, we have added another relative pronoun to our list, so for some more practice,
let’s check comprehension.