🗣️ 25. Relative clauses

A relative clause modifies a noun and contains a gap that the noun fills: le livre [que je lis ___]. French marks the gap's role on the relative word itself — qui for a subject, que for a direct object, dont for a complement with de, où for a place or a time, a preposition with qui or lequel for the rest — and never leaves the relative word out: English the book I read is le livre que je lis. Prepositions are never stranded; the whole prepositional phrase stands at the front of the clause. This chapter gives the relative words and their roles, the treatment of prepositions, dont, the relatives without an antecedent, the restrictive and appositive uses, the mood in relatives, word order and agreement, the relatives of speech, and the UD analysis, with counts from the written and spoken treebanks. Clefts, which use relative-like clauses for focus, are in chapter 29; the forms of the relative pronouns in the pronouns chapter.

Contents:

1. Overview
2. The UD analysis
3. The relative words and their roles
4. Prepositions in relatives: qui, lequel, quoi
5. Dont
6. Où and the relatives of time and place
7. Relatives without an antecedent
8. Restrictive and appositive relatives; sentential relatives
9. Mood in the relative clause
10. Word order and agreement inside the relative
11. Which roles can be relativized
12. Relatives in speech
13. Reduced and infinitival relatives
14. How Mova handles it
15. Sources

1. Overview

The relative words of UD French GSD (all words with PronType=Rel, UD 2.18, 2026-11-06) are 3 502: qui 1 882 as nsubj and 215 as nsubj:pass, où 343 as advmod, que/qu' 429 as obj, dont 216 as nmod and 57 as iobj, lequel and its forms about 180 under a preposition. In the spoken ParisStories there are 406 (qui 207 nsubj, que/qu' 87 obj, où 45), in Rhapsodie 678. Dont is 9.5 per 10 000 words in GSD, 4.7 in Rhapsodie and 0.7 in ParisStories (3 in 42 789 words).

2. The UD analysis

The predicate of the relative clause is acl:relcl of the antecedent noun; the relative word has the role of the gap inside the clause:

fr-ud-dev_00119 · UD French GSD Ces institutions prêtent à leur tour l'argent reçu à des habitants du pays dans lequel elles opèrent. these institutions lend at their turn the money received to some inhabitants of-the country in which they operate — "These institutions in turn lend the money they receive to inhabitants of the country in which they operate."

Here opèrent is acl:relcl of pays, lequel is an obl of opèrent with case dans, elles its nsubj. In a relative with a copula the predicate heads: le comté dont le siège est Torrington has Torrington as the acl:relcl (fr-ud-train_00747).

GSD has 3 240 acl:relcl; every one stands after its head (2026-11-06). French has no enhanced graph, so the link between the relative pronoun and its antecedent (UD's ref) is not recorded: a reader of the tree must find the antecedent by following acl:relcl up.

Attachment. The antecedent is the noun the relative clause attaches to, and the treebank's choice can be wrong when several nouns precede: in fr-ud-train_00747 (Le comté de Goshen est un comté de l'État du Wyoming dont le siège est Torrington) the clause is attached to État, though Torrington is the seat of the county. Agreement helps only when the nouns differ in gender or number; here they do not.

3. The relative words and their roles

Qui is the subject, for persons and things alike: l'homme qui parle, le train qui part. It never elides (qui arrive, not *qu'arrive). The verb agrees with the antecedent in person and number: moi qui suis, vous qui êtes, c'est nous qui avons gagné.

Que is the direct object or the predicate: le livre que je lis, la femme qu'il a épousée, le menteur qu'il est. It elides to qu' before a vowel. It is never the subject: qui and que are case forms, not animacy forms (unlike interrogative qui/que, chapter 26).

Dont replaces de + a relative (§5); où a relative of place or time (§6); a preposition + qui/lequel any other prepositional complement (§4).

The relative words do not change for gender or number except lequel, which agrees with the antecedent and contracts with à and de: auquel, auxquels, auxquelles; duquel, desquels, desquelles (à laquelle, de laquelle do not contract). Lequel can also be a subject or object in legal and administrative prose, to avoid ambiguity: le fils de Mme X, lequel est mineur.

4. Prepositions in relatives: qui, lequel, quoi

No stranding. The preposition always stands before the relative word at the front of the clause: la femme à qui je parle (*la femme que je parle à), la ville dans laquelle il vit. This is pied-piping in the terms of English grammar; French has no alternative in the standard.

Persons and things. After a preposition, qui is for persons (l'ami avec qui il voyage: fr-ud-train_06013, le biologiste Vincent Prié, avec qui il parcourt à cheval les bancs de sable), lequel for things and, especially after parmi, entre and the compound prepositions, also for persons (les candidats parmi lesquels on choisira). Qui is not used for things: *la table sur qui.

Compound prepositions take lequel and its contractions: un match au cours duquel il inscrit un but (fr-ud-train_02217), la date à laquelle Mesa quitte les Postobón (fr-ud-train_01832), l'arbre près duquel, la maison à côté de laquelle. With a compound preposition ending in de, dont is impossible (*le match au cours dont): dont replaces only a de that governs the relative directly.

A de-phrase inside a prepositional phrase. When the relative is the complement of a noun that is itself inside a prepositional phrase, dont is impossible and de qui/duquel is used: l'homme à la fille duquel j'ai parlé "the man to whose daughter I spoke", not *l'homme dont j'ai parlé à la fille.

Quoi follows a preposition when the antecedent is neuter or a whole clause: ce à quoi je pense, ce sur quoi il compte, il n'y a rien sur quoi on puisse compter; and in the infinitival relatives de quoi manger, de quoi vivre "enough to eat, to live on".

In UD the preposition is case of the relative pronoun, and the pronoun has the clause role (obl:arg, obl:mod, nmod): lequel 49 obl:mod and 28 obl:arg, laquelle 33 and 26 in GSD.

5. Dont

Dont replaces de + relative pronoun, for persons and things, in all the functions of a de-complement (fraser-1921 notes it was originally an adverb "whence", Latin de unde):

fr-ud-dev_00024 · UD French GSD Adam est le berceau de la tribu Al Bu Said, dont est issu l'actuel sultan Qabus ibn Said. "Adam is the cradle of the Al Bu Said tribe, from which the present sultan Qaboos bin Said comes."

The last example has the stylistic inversion that dont favours (§10). Dont in enumerations (cent passagers, dont dix enfants "including ten children") has no verb; GSD tags it CCONJ-like, as the cc of the following noun.

Dont and the subject. Dont can relativize the complement of a subject noun: C'est un philosophe dont le portrait se trouve au Louvre. This "extraction out of a subject" is supposed to be blocked by the subject-island constraint. A series of acceptability experiments found that in French relative clauses it is rated as well as or better than extraction out of an object, both with dont and with de qui, while the corresponding wh-questions (De quel philosophe le portrait se trouve-t-il au Louvre ?) show a clear penalty; the authors explain the difference by the discourse function of the two constructions — a relative does not put the extracted element into focus, a question does (abeille-2019-extracting; the full study in winckel-2024).

Rules of dont. Dont cannot be the complement of a noun inside a prepositional phrase (§4); it cannot replace de with a compound preposition (à côté de, près de); the noun it complements keeps its definite article (l'homme dont le fils, not *dont son fils); and the word order after it is free enough to put the subject after a short verb (dont est issu l'actuel sultan).

Dont in speech is rare: 3 in ParisStories, 21 in Rhapsodie (2026-11-06). Speech replaces it by que or by a clause with a resumptive en or possessive (§12).

6. Où and the relatives of time and place

Où is the relative of place (la ville où j'habite, le pays d'où il vient, le chemin par où il est passé) and of time (le jour où il est parti, l'époque où l'on voyageait à cheval, le moment de l'année où les feuilles commencent à pousser: fr-ud-train_01479). English uses when for the second; French does not use quand as a relative: *le jour quand il est parti. With an indefinite antecedent of time, que is literary or regional: un jour que je passais "one day as I was passing".

Où takes prepositions of origin and path: d'où, par où, jusqu'où. In GSD où is advmod of the relative predicate (343 times) or obl:arg when the verb selects a place (21: la ville où il est né). It is also the interrogative où (chapter 26); the tag PronType=Rel or Int separates them.

7. Relatives without an antecedent

Neuter free relatives with ce. Ce qui, ce que, ce dont, ce à quoi stand for "what, that which": ce qui me plaît, ce que je veux, ce dont j'ai besoin, ce à quoi je pense. Ce is the head (PRON) and the clause its acl:relcl. They are also the indirect-question forms of qu'est-ce qui, qu'est-ce que (chapter 26).

Free relatives of persons. Qui alone means "whoever, the one who" in proverbs and set phrases: Qui vivra verra. Rira bien qui rira le dernier. Embrassez qui vous voudrez. Quiconque "whoever" is formal: quiconque a été le Docteur avant lui (fr-ud-train_07778). Celui qui, ceux qui, celle que are the ordinary forms: Ceux qui partent sont tristes.

Free relatives of place: Va où tu veux. Je l'ai trouvé là où je l'avais laissé.

Concessive free relatives take the subjunctive: qui que tu sois "whoever you are", quoi qu'il dise "whatever he says", où que tu ailles "wherever you go", quel que soit le prix "whatever the price". Quoique "although" is one word; quoi que "whatever" two.

8. Restrictive and appositive relatives; sentential relatives

A restrictive relative picks out its antecedent: Les élèves qui ont travaillé ont réussi (only those). An appositive (non-restrictive) relative adds information about an antecedent already identified, and is set off by commas: Les élèves, qui ont travaillé, ont réussi (all of them). French uses the same relative words for both — there is no equivalent of the English restriction of that to restrictives — and an appositive relative can have a proper name or a pronoun as antecedent: Le général Philippe Morillon, qui commandait les forces de l'ONU sur place, accuse (fr-ud-dev_01527). Lequel as a subject is limited to appositives.

In GSD 723 of the 3 240 acl:relcl (22%) have a comma between the antecedent and the clause attached to the clause, a rough measure of the appositive ones; in ParisStories 42 of 310 (2026-11-06). UD does not distinguish the two types by label.

Sentential relatives. A relative whose antecedent is a whole clause takes ce as its antecedent: Les salles sont très belles, ce qui ne gâte rien (fr-ud-dev_00270), Léa est convoquée au poste de police, ce dont elle s'offusque vivement (fr-ud-train_01786). In GSD ce is then a parataxis of the main predicate and the clause its acl:relcl. Chose que, fait que are literary variants (chose qu'il n'avait jamais faite).

9. Mood in the relative clause

The relative clause takes the indicative unless its antecedent is not presented as an existing, identified thing. It takes the subjunctive (fraser-1921, §270):

• when the antecedent is sought or required: Je cherche une maison qui ait un jardin (any such house) against Je cherche une maison qui a un jardin (a particular one);
• after a superlative and le seul, l'unique, le premier, le dernier: C'est le meilleur film que j'aie vu, le seul qui sache le faire; the indicative is possible when the fact is asserted (le seul qui est venu);
• after a negated or questioned antecedent: Il n'y a personne qui le sache. Connais-tu quelqu'un qui puisse m'aider ?

In GSD 21 acl:relcl verbs are subjunctive (2026-11-06). The conditional marks a hypothetical relative: un homme qui pourrait vous aider.

10. Word order and agreement inside the relative

Inversion of a noun subject. In a relative clause introduced by que, dont, où or a prepositional phrase, a noun subject can follow a short verb that has no object: la maison qu'habitait mon grand-père, les droits dont jouissent les citoyens, la ville où est né Victor Hugo, un match […] dans lequel jouent Béatrice et Niels (fr-ud-dev_00152). In GSD 114 postverbal noun subjects stand in relative clauses (chapter 21, §5), the largest group of all. The inversion avoids leaving a short verb at the end after a long subject and puts the new referent last. An inverted pronoun subject is impossible in a relative (*le livre que lis-je).

Agreement of the past participle with que. A past participle with avoir agrees with a preceding direct object, and que counts as one: les lettres que j'ai écrites, la femme qu'il a épousée. The rule is in the auxiliaries chapter; the agreement is audible only in some participles (écrite, prise, faite, mise).

Agreement of the verb with qui. The verb agrees with the antecedent of qui: C'est moi qui ai raison. Toi qui sais tout. After un de ceux qui, un des … qui the verb agrees with the plural: C'est un des rares films qui aient su ….

11. Which roles can be relativized

All the roles that French can express can be relativized: subject, object, indirect object, prepositional complements, the complement of a noun (dont). The standard of a comparison cannot be relativized directly (English the man you are taller than has no French equivalent; French uses a prepositional phrase: l'homme par rapport auquel tu es grand). The frequency follows the familiar hierarchy: in GSD the subject relative qui is 2 097 of the relative pronouns (60%), the object que/qu' 429, dont 273, où 364, the prepositional lequel/qui about 200.

Object relatives are harder for children. Comprehension studies of French-speaking children (4;8 to 6;3) found the usual difficulty with object relatives (le chat que le chien poursuit) when the object and the intervening subject share features; a number mismatch between them (singular object, plural subject) improved comprehension, while an animacy mismatch did not, which the authors take as evidence that only features involved in the syntax of the dependency (number in French) count for locality (durrleman-2021).

Long relatives. A relative pronoun can depend on a verb inside a complement clause: l'homme que je crois qu'il a vu. These long dependencies are rare and written; in UD they are one of the main sources of non-projective arcs (chapter 20, §10).

12. Relatives in speech

Spoken French reduces the relative system to qui, que, où, and uses que as a general relative marker with a resumptive pronoun where the standard has dont or a prepositional relative:

The UD spoken treebanks contain few of these: in ParisStories 87 of the relative que/qu' are obj and a handful have another role, and dont is almost absent (3). The transcriptions are of educated speakers in Paris and of a mixed corpus (Rhapsodie), so the non-standard relatives are rarer there than in the descriptions of popular speech. What the spoken treebanks do show is the reduction of the inventory (no lequel, almost no dont) and the use of où in clefts of time: c'est ce jour-là où j'ai rencontré Lise (ParisStories_2022_13_CocktailsEtCrêpes__13), where the written standard has c'est ce jour-là que.

13. Reduced and infinitival relatives

Participle phrases modify a noun like a relative clause but are acl, not acl:relcl: les mesures prises par le gouvernement (= qui ont été prises), un enfant parlant trois langues (= qui parle). GSD has 4 218 participial acl on nouns against 3 240 acl:relcl (chapter 22, §5).

Infinitival relatives exist only with a preposition + relative (une maison dans laquelle vivre, literary) and with de quoi (de quoi manger). The ordinary infinitive on a noun is à + infinitive with a missing object (un livre à lire), an acl (chapter 22, §5; chapter 23, §10).

14. How Mova handles it

What is done. acl:relcl is in Mova's relation set and is kept. The relative pronouns get WP (qui, que, dont, lequel) and WRB (où) from PronType=Rel in the tag mapping (en xpos-fill), the same tags as the English relatives and interrogatives. Traces of the parser trained on the GSD training file (en explain, 12 epochs, beam 8, CPU, 2026-11-06):

The parser finds a relative clause when its subject is a pronoun (je, qui), and fails when it is a noun: que + noun + verb is read as a noun phrase. GSD relatives have a noun subject less often than English ones, and the tagger hesitates over que: in our two failing sentences it is WP once (Les lettres que Marie a écrites) and IN once (Le chat que la voisine nourrit, where nourrit is also mistagged as an adjective).

What is not done.

• The antecedent's role. Mova's English frames reader fills the role of the gap with the antecedent through the enhanced ref edge of English trees. French has no enhanced graph, and no French rule turns le livre dont je parle into parler de livre or le pays dans lequel elles opèrent into opérer dans pays.
• Restrictive and appositive relatives are not told apart; the comma is the only cue and it is not used.
• Mood. The subjunctive in a relative (a sought, not an existing, antecedent) is lost in the tags.
• Spoken relatives with resumptive pronouns are not handled, and the training file has almost none.

15. Sources

• Fraser, Squair & Coleman, The New Fraser and Squair Complete French Grammar (1921), §270 (the subjunctive in adjectival clauses), §398 (dont): fraser-1921.
• Winckel & Abeillé, Extraction out of subject phrases in French: experimental evidence (Quasy, SyntaxFest 2019): abeille-2019-extracting; Winckel, French subject islands: empirical and formal approaches (Language Science Press, 2024): winckel-2024.
• Durrleman & Bentea, Locality in the acquisition of object A′-dependencies: insights from French (Glossa, 2021): durrleman-2021.
• UD French GSD, ParisStories, Rhapsodie, UD 2.18; sentences cited by sent_id; counts made with awk over the CoNLL-U files, 2026-11-06.
• Mova: en/src/main.rs (xpos_of, explain), en/src/gram.rs, prag/src/frames.rs.
• The full list is in Sources.

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