Relative clauses

A Sample sentences

Ш The machine which produced this printout has been withdrawn.

Ш The INJ300, which produced reasonable copy quality, has been replaced by the INJ400.

Ш Pat Smith, who heads the Administration Department, will meet you on your next visit.

Ш The only person who can give you the information is out of the office at the moment.

Ш Last year we sold the site where we started up our company.

Ш I'm afraid we can't relax our payment terms at a time when others are tightening theirs.

B Form

Relative clauses are subordinate clauses which provide information about a noun or noun phrase.

There are two types of relative clause:

ь defining relative clauses

ь non-defining relative clauses

We can distinguish them by the punctuation. Non-defining clauses are enclosed by commas; defining clauses are not.

The machine which produced this printout has been withdrawn. (defining: no commas)

Pat Smith, who heads the Administration Department, will meet you on your next visit. (non-defining: commas)

C Uses

	Defining and non-defining	Defining only
	Personal	Non-personal	Personal and non-personal
subjective	who	which	that
objective	who(m)	which	that, zero (no pronoun)
genitive	whose	of which/whose
locative		where
temporal		when

Defining relative clauses provide essential information which restricts or clarifies the meaning of the preceding noun or noun phrase by specifying its meaning more clearly.

The only person who can give you the information is out of the office at the moment.

The clause 'who can give you the information' identifies the person; without this essential information, the sentence has a very different meaning.

Non-defining relative clauses provide additional, non-essential information.

The INJ300, which produced reasonable copy quality, has been replaced by the INJ400.

The clause 'which produced reasonable copy quality' provides additional, non-essential information; without this information the basic meaning of the sentence remains the same.

1 Talking about people (personal):

subjective – defining: The person who/that prepared that report no longer works for us.

subjective ‒ non-defining: Carla Jensen, who prepared that report, no longer works for us.

objective – defining: I've spoken to the workers who(m)/that/(no pronoun) we are going to lay off.

objective ‒ non-defining: I've spoken to Andrew Green, who(m) we are going to lay off.

objective after preposition ‒ non-defining: Andrew Green, with whom I discussed the layoff yesterday, has agreed to leave.

objective after preposition – defining: The workers with whom I discussed the layoff have agreed to leave.

genitive – defining: I'd also like to acknowledge a man whose efforts have helped this company over the years.

genitive ‒ non-defining: Let's not forget Margaret Davies, whose company had been a regular supplier.

2 Talking about things (non-personal):

subjective ‒ defining: We have just seen a machine which/that can fill 200 bottles a minute.

subjective ‒ non-defining: I'm afraid that the INJ200, which produced reasonable copy quality, has been withdrawn.

objective ‒ defining: We are not interested in machines which/that/(no pronoun) we can't maintain ourselves.

objective ‒ non-defining: We think that the INJ300, which you demonstrated a couple of weeks ago, meets our needs.

genitive ‒ defining: We cannot deal with companies whose offices/the offices of which are not in the UK.

genitive ‒ non-defining: And finally we have the INJ300, whose speed/the speed of which is much higher than the INJ200.

3 Talking about places (locative):

defining: We went to a workshop where the whole process is automated.

non-defining: The workshop, where we saw the robot, doesn't have a single operator.

4 Talking about the time (temporal):

defining: I'm afraid I won't be around when the party takes place.

non-defining: On December 21, when the party takes place, I shall be out of the country.

Notes

1 The relative pronoun after the reason:

I have read the reasons why/that the delivery was delayed but I find them hard to believe.

The reason that/why we are so disappointed is that we had always relied on your prompt service. (not: the reason because)

2 The relative pronoun after all, each, every and compounds:

We have rejected all the offers (that) we have received.

We have tried everything (that) we could.

Each hotel (that) we tried gave us the same response.

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