RELATIVE PRONOUN

Definition :
Reltive Pronouns, which relate to some noun going before in the sentence as who, whose, whom, which, what, that.

A relative pronoun does the work of a conjunction as well as a pronoun.

e.g

Who / whome / whosenormally referring to people
Which / what / thatreferring to things

e.g

SentencesRelative Pronoun
I know the man. The man lives here.I know the man who lives here.
Relative Pronoun
The man who stole the car has been caught
The man whom you accused is not guilt
The woman whose house I rented is my cous
The house which you see was built long ago
I mean what I say
Take anything that you like
Here the girl whom you wanted to meet
The happy laughter that made me smile came from the three-year-old who lives next door

The Relative Pronoun who has different forms for Accusative and Genitive

e.g

This is the boy / girl who works hard.
whom / who all praise
whose exercise is done well
These are the boys / girls who works hard.
whom / who all praise
whose exercises are done well

It will be noticed that the forms are the same for singular and plural, masculine and feminine.

 

Rules 1 : In informal usage, a relative pronoun is optional when it is followed by a subject; it’s required in formal usage.

e.g

FormalThis is the gift that I got last New Year
Informal This is the gift I got last New Year

 

Rules 2 : When the relative pronoun is not followed by a subject, it must be included.

e.g

Hussy is a boy who loves to play video games

 

Rules 3 : When the relative pronoun is preceded by a comma, it must be included.

e.g

Brian, who likes to raise chickens, is an FFA member.

 

Rules 4 : Whose is the possessive relative pronoun; it cannot be omitted.

e.g

John is a teenager whose goal is to get into a good college.

Learning Competency

Stressed and Unstressed
In English sentences content words are stressed while structural words are generally not.