Relative clauses with who, which and that

A Introduction

Emma: / saw Natalie the other day.

Melanie: Natalie? The girl who plays the piano?

Emma: No, that's Natasha. Natalie is the student who dropped out of college, the one who never did any studying. She's working in Davidson's now, the shop that sells very expensive clothes.

The relative clauses in this conversation identify which person or thing we are talking about. The clause who plays the piano tells us which girl Melanie means. The clause that sells very expensive clothes tells us which shop Emma means.

Sometimes we can use an adjective or a phrase to identify someone or something.

Adjective: the tall girl the new student the red car

Phrase: the man in the suit the shop on the corner the woman with red hair

But when we need a longer explanation, we can use a relative clause.

Relative clause: the woman who gets up early the car that broke down

B Who, which and that

The relative pronouns who, which and that go after the noun and at the beginning of the relative clause.

Who refers to people.

Nick is the man who owns that enormous dog. I don't like people who tell jokes all the time.

The little girl who sat next to me on the coach ate sweets the whole way.

Sarah is pretty annoyed with the person who stole her mobile phone. We can also use that, but it is less usual.

Jake is the man that plays the guitar.

The woman that lived here before us is a romantic novelist.

That and which refer to things. That is more usual than which, especially in conversation. The car that won the race looked very futuristic, didn't it? They've recaptured all the animals that escaped from the zoo. The children saw the actual spacecraft that landed on the moon.

Which can be a little formal.

There are several restaurants which do Sunday lunches. Is Zedco the company which was taken over last year?

We do not use another pronoun like he or it with the relative pronoun. not the-man whohe owns-that-enormouts-dog not the-actual spacecraft that it landed on the moon

In all these sentences who, which and that are the subject of the relative clause. For who, which and that as object, see Units f 38 and f 39.

137 Exercises

1 Identifying (A)

Look at the information and identify which one is meant.

Use the shortest way of identifying where possible, e.g. the tall boy, not the boy who is tall.

? the boy (he is tall) the tall boy

? the man (he has a beard) the man with a beard

? the woman (she plays golf) the woman who plays golf

1 the young man (he is at the door)

2 the man (he plays his stereo at night)

3 the woman (she is very thin)

4 the girl (she has green eyes)

5 the young woman (she is in the office)

6 the man (he drives a taxi)

7 the young man (he is smart)

8 the student (she failed all her exams)

2 Who, which and that (B)

Complete the conversation. Put in who, which or that. There is always more than one possible answer.

Emma: Shall we have something to eat?

Matthew: Yes, but not here. I don't like cafes (►) that don't have chairs. I'm not one of those people

(►)who can eat standing up.
Emma: There's another restaurant over there.
Matthew: It looks expensive, one of those places (1)……………. charge very high prices. The only

customers (2)…………... can afford to eat there are business executives (3)……………. get their

expenses paid. Anyway, I can't see a menu. I'm not going into a restaurant (4)……………. doesn't

display a menu.

Emma: We just passed a cafe (5)……………….. does snacks.
Matthew: Oh, I didn't like the look of that.
Emma: You're one of those people (6) ....................... are never satisfied, aren't you?

3 Relative clauses (A-B)

Combine the information to make news items. Make the sentence in brackets

into a relative clause with who or which. Start each sentence with the, e.g. The man ...

► A man has gone to prison. (He shot two policemen.)
The man who shot two policemen has gone to prison.

1 A bomb caused a lot of damage. (It went off this morning.)

2 A scientist has won the Nobel Prize. (He discovered a new planet.)

3 A footballer has been banned from playing again. (He took drugs.)

4 A little girl has been found safe and well. (She had been missing since Tuesday.)

5 A company has laid off thousands of workers. (It owns Greenway Supermarkets.)

6 An old lady now wants to swim the English Channel. (She did a parachute jump.)

Date: 2014-12-22; view: 2012