Relative clauses Lesson 30 of the english course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: the lesson at school .
0 A relative clause is a clause that tells you more about a noun. 1 «The boy who won the race smiled.» Which boy? 2 The one who won the race. 4 It starts with a relative pronoun: who for people, which for things and animals, that for either, whose for belonging, where for places and when for times. 6 That is her dialect, the way people speak where she lives, and it isn't wrong at home; in standard English, for school writing, it is «the girl who helped me». 8 Sometimes the relative clause is extra information, and then a pair of commas fences it off: «The dog, which was barking loudly, ran away.» Cover the part between the commas and the sentence still works. 11 And watch what the clause is attached to: in «The cat sat on the mat that was black», it is the mat that was black, not the cat. 13 A relative clause gives more information about a noun. 14 Relative clauses usually start with a relative pronoun: who, which, that, whose, where or when. 15 Who is used for people, which for things and animals, and that for either. 16 Whose shows belonging: «the girl whose bike was stolen». 17 Who's is short for who is or who has, which is not the same as whose. 18 Where can start a relative clause about a place: «the house where I live». 19 A relative clause that adds extra information is separated by a pair of commas, or a comma and a full stop at the end. 20 Commas around a relative clause can change the meaning of a sentence. 21 The relative pronoun can often be left out when it is not the subject of the clause: «the book I read». 22 A relative clause describes the noun it comes right after, so place it carefully. 23 In some dialects people say «the lass what helped me»; in standard English it is «the girl who helped me». 24 Slang: «lass» (Yorkshire, Scotland) means girl; «peng» (London) means really good; «rizz» means charm. ← previous Fronted adverbialsnext → Tense consistency and verb forms↑ back to English This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/30-relative-clauses/