A relative clause (also known
as an adjectival clause) is a clause;
that is, it is a stucture that can be independent or dependet, but always
has a subject and a predicate. Found within a sentence, it begins
with a relative pronoun (who, whose,
which, and that) and modifies the noun or nominal for which the pronoun
stands (the sentence's antecedent).
It functions as an adjective by modifying or
in other words changing the structure or meaning of nouns and pronouns.
Generally, it will follow the word it modifies. Sentences containing
relative clauses can always be separated into two sentences.
Example: The people who were exposed
to typhoid are sick.
-The people are sick.
-They were exposed to typhoid.
Additionally, one should know that there
are two types of relative clauses: restrictive and nonrestrictive. A restrictive
relative clause is usually essential to the meaning of the antecedent and
cannot be dropped. It is often used to limit the generality of classification
in regards to the noun or pronoun it modifies.
Example: Compare the following sentences.
Women who hate men should stay
single.
Women should stay single.
The meaning changes considerably when using
the restrictive relative clause. They both represent a viewpoint;
however, they are very different ones at that. Thus the relative
restrictive clause (who hate men) necessitates a restriction upon
the subject (women).
A nonrestrictive
relative clause is set off by commas. As a sentence modifier, It
is used to add definition to the main clause but it is not essential to
the meaning of the sentence.
Example: Loreen, who is honest,
will succeed.
History
The use of relative clauses can be traced
to Middle English; in which Chaucer used relative clauses throughout his
works.
Example: From Chaucer's The Canterbury
Tales comes the following quote, "Quietly he went across the street
to a blacksmith called Gervase, who forged equipment in his shop for
plowing".
Continued in the sixteenth century, the
very famous William Shakespeare found significant use of the relative clause.
Example: From Shakespeare's Richard
III comes the following quote, "O God! which this blood mad'st,
revenge his death! O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge
his death".
Interestingly enough there was a marker
of change, in regards to spelling, to come about in the Scottish usage
of the relative clause in the 1500s. Up until this change, the spelling
of the initial consonant sound wh, found in the relative pronouns
which and who, was spelled quh.
Exercise
The following exercise has been adapted from
research test questions given to first year students of English at the
University of Nijmegen.
The following ten sentences have been paired
for a reason. Your task is to rewrite each pair of sentences so that
what remains is one (single solitary) sentence containing a relative clause.
Example: a. The people are sick.
b. They were exposed to typhoid.
The people who were exposed to typhoid
are sick.
1. a. The man was tired.
b. He had not
gotten any sleep.
2. a. My brother is a genius.
b. He is captain
of the chess team.
3. a. The bat broke when it engaged
the ball.
b. He threw the
ball so fast and hard.
4. a. His brother is no longer on
campus.
b. He was my
roommate last semester.
5. a. The dog had been missing for
days.
b. We found the
dog.
Reflections
Relative clauses are used primarily in quite
the same way as adjectives are used. Relative clauses describe, define,
and limit the noun or pronoun they modify. This can be extremely
important in effective writing. Considering that most novels, short
stories, and plays begin in medias res, many authors are forced to use
long descriptions in order to clue the reader into all that has happened
before the book's inception. That means that the author must summarize
a character's life into an approximately twenty page introduction.
By using relative clauses, the author is then able to avoid short choppy
sentences while maintaining a consistent pace of delivering pertinent information
to the reader.
As important as relative clauses are in
effective writing, one must be careful to use them in such a way that they
are
effective. Often times when they are used too frequently, they tend
to become confusing for the reader. This confusion occurs in many
forms. One form of reader confusion might occur when the author ties
up way too much material into one sentence. The following example
might help illustrate this point more clearly. (Example: My brother,
who lives in Utah, has two wives, seven kids, two dogs, a cat, and is buying
a house in the suburbs, has been very sick lately.) In order to fix
this type of mistake, the writer must be able to weed out and identify
needed information from unnecessary information in a sentence. Another
form of reader confusion might occur when the author has no grasp of the
syntactical difference between restrictive and nonrestrictive relative
clauses. Improper usage of commas in a nonrestrictive relative clause
can be devastating; whereas the mere addition of commas to what should
be a restrictive clause, can change the meaning of the sentence in its
entirety. The following examples should clarify what I mean by the
preceding statement. (Example: My brother, who lives in Texas, can’t
come.) From this nonrestrictive relative clause, we can assume that
the author only has one brother because parenthetically the clause adds
that this brother lives in Texas. Now compare the above example to
the following. (Example: My brother who lives in Texas can’t come.)
This restrictive relative clause singles out one of the author’s brothers,
the one in Texas, but it does not suggest that there is only one
brother. This type of mistake can be fixed by merely engaging the writer
with a brief description of the two terms and then by applying them in
an understandable context. These suggestions should by no means discourage
the writer from using relative clauses (for they can be extremely useful
when used appropriately) but actually give them a basis by which they can
acquire additional information.
On quite a different note, while researching
relative clauses, I came across a particularly interesting description
of the nonrestrictive relative clause in relation to its intonation pattern.
Read the following example aloud. (Example: *Our new house (it will
be finished soon) is going to cost us $125,000. *Our new house, which will
be finished soon, is going to cost us $125,000.) Did you notice that
the nonrestrictive relative clause’s intonation pattern sets it off as
if it were a parenthetical remark? According to Transformational
Grammar: A Guide for Teachers, it is this type of intonation pattern
that can be credited for the nonrestrictive clause being set off by commas.
Probably not too important in the grand scheme of grammar, but it is fascinating
phonologically.
Bibliography
Aurbach, Joseph ed. Transformational
Grammar: A
Guide for Teachers. Maryland: Fourth Printing,
1971.
Crystal, David. The Cambridge
Encyclopedia of the
English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University
Press, 1995.
Irmscher, William. The Holt Guide
to English: A
Contemporary Handbook of Rhetoric,
Language, and Literature. New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1972.
Kolln, Martha and Robert Funk. Understanding
English Grammar. Boston:Allyn and Bacon, 1998.
5th ed. 133, 174-183, & 225.
Pei, Mario. The Story of the English
Language.
New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1967.
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