Main content
Course: Grammar > Unit 3
Lesson 3: Relative pronounsRelative pronouns
Relative pronouns link independent and dependent clauses in sentences. They are who, whom, whose, that and which. Who, whom, whose and that can refer to people, while whose, that and which can refer to things. Which does not work with people.
Want to join the conversation?
- At1:34whats the difference between the witch who cast the spell and the witch that cast the spell?(25 votes)
- "Who" refers to a person. "That" refers to any a noun, "the city that stands still", "the book that I read". "The boy who fell over", "the girl who finished her homework late".
Hope this helps! :)(29 votes)
- Are "that" and "who" pretty much the same and are interchangeable in sentences which talk about people? Would "The guy who is my friend is cool" have exactly the same meaning as "The guy that is my friend is cool"?(6 votes)
- You are right. When dealing with "that, which and who", you'll be right most of the time if you simply use "that".
HOWEVER
since "who" is about people, it offers more dignity regarding the person to whom you refer. If you've got to make an error, make it on the side of honor, respect and dignity.(26 votes)
- At0:51David said we can use whose, that and which to refer to things. Can I have an example where whose is being used to refer to things?(15 votes)
- Based on the site below, the word whose indicates possession. You can use it in questions or as a relative pronoun:
Question: Whose birthday is it today? (The birthday belongs to someone.)
Relative pronoun: This is the book whose title I couldn’t remember. (The title belongs to the book.)
Site link with more examples: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/whose(1 vote)
- Is this sentence correct, you should not imitate such a boy WHOEVER he.(7 votes)
- "You should not imitate such a boy whoever he is". Add the "is".(15 votes)
- David said "The man who sold the world is coming by on Tuesday" so casually it almost worried me. But then again, it's David. ;)(13 votes)
- Can you just add commas as an Interruption like: The witch, who cast the spell, is kind. Does that work? If not why?(7 votes)
- That works, but it's a different grammatical structure. Find the lesson on appositives, and you'll understand.(7 votes)
- Is the pronoun "whose" both possessive and relative?(6 votes)
- yes. You've hit the nail on the head. "what" it IS depends on what it DOES in a sentence.(7 votes)
- Have you noticed that David said grammarians instead of hello grammarians?(4 votes)
- Yes, I did notice that. I was slightly heartbroken for a couple of seconds, Idk why though.(11 votes)
- At1:17cant you just say "the wilted salad that I bought?" in conversation to change it into a question rather than an comment, for example
Mom: What happened to that salad you got, did you eat it?
Could I say: The wilted salad that I bought?
Mom: Why did you not get a new one?(5 votes)- Your response communicates clearly, but it is a dependent clause, and cannot stand alone as a sentence.(4 votes)
- I’m confused. Could I say whom is at the door or is that improper grammar? Can someone explain further please?(3 votes)
- You could say both who and whom.”Whom is at the door”and”who is at the door are both correct.Don’t worry about it!Hope this helps,(5 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] Grammarians,
we're gonna talk about relative pronouns today
and what relative pronouns do is they link clauses together, specifically, independent
and dependent clauses, and if you don't know what independent and dependent clauses are, that's okay, just, suffice it to say,
that these pronouns allow you to staple phrases together. For example, in the sentence,
the man who sold the world is coming by on Tuesday, the pronoun who, is the relative pronoun there, it's linking the independent clause, the man is coming by on Tuesday to the dependent clause, sold the world. The relative pronouns of
English are who, whom, whose, that and which, and we use them all for different things. So, we can use who, whom, whose and that to refer to people, and we can use whose, that and which to refer to things. Let me show you. You could say, the salad
that I bought was wilted. But at the same time, I can
also use that in this sentence. The man that I saw smiled. See, I'm using that to refer to him. I could also use who, but the word which, however, does not play
very nicely with people. In the sentence, the witch
who cast the spell is kind, we could use either the
witch who cast the spell or the witch that cast the spell because both that and who work with people. But which, strangely, does not. So we couldn't say, for example, the witch which owns a cat is cruel. That's just now how
the language shook out, which is not a relative
pronoun that applies to people. These are the relative
pronouns of English, this is broadly how
they work and I'm gonna get into more specifics
in following videos. You can learn anything, David out.