relative clauses

RELATIVE CLAUSES

Relative clauses add extra information to a sentence by defining a noun. They are usually divided into two types 

–defining relative clauses and non-defining relative clauses.



Defining relative clauses

Look at this sentence:

•   The woman who lives next door works in a bank.

‘who lives next door’ is a defining relative clause. It tells us which woman we are talking about.



Look at some more examples:

•   Look out! There’s the dog that bit my brother.

•   The film that we saw last week was awful.

•   This is the skirt I bought in the sales.

Can you identify the defining relative clauses? They tell us which dog, which film and which skirt we are talking about.

The relative pronoun is the object:

Next, let's talk about when the relative pronoun is the object of the clause. In this case we can drop the relative pronoun if we want to. Again, the clause can come after the subject or the object of the sentence. Here are some examples:

(Clause after the object)

• She loves the chocolate (which / that) I bought.
• We went to the village (which / that) Lucy recommended.
• John met a woman (who / that) I had been to school with.
• The police arrested a man (who / that) Jill worked with.

• The bike (which / that) I loved was stolen.
• The university (which / that) she likes is famous.
• The woman (who / that) my brother loves is from Mexico.
• The doctor (who / that) my grandmother liked lives in New York.

PRACTICE..

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/grammar-reference/relative-clauses-defining-relative-clauses

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/relative-clauses/exercises?06

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/relative-clauses/exercises?10

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/relative-clauses/exercises?05

http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/defining-relative-clause.html

http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/relative-clause-exercises.html