Relative Clauses

A. Relative Clauses

It seems like I do nothing for so long time I made the question words topic before. Before I forget everything about its difference with this material, I’ll make a simple note.

A relative clause is the ‘extra information’ clauses. It tells us which person or thing the speaker means. Actually I usually love to call it as adverb (in the phrase or clause pattern).

Relative clause also uses the question words such as what, when, who, where, etc. The most invisible thing you can differ them is the pattern of sentence.

The question words are in interrogative pattern and it is a sentence. Vice versa with the relative clause, it is in positive pattern and it is a clause (adverb). In Indonesian, I mean the relative clause as yang, for example: uang kembalian yang saya titipkan kemarin ternyata terlalu banyak.

See the example below:

1.     Ismi has a cute doll.

2.     I bought a cute doll in the supermarket.

Sentences number 1 and 2 are the simple ones. The ‘doll’ I talk about is the same. So how to make them in a sentence? That’s why I’ll give you the relative clauses topic.

In a simple one, we can combine both sentences so that it becomes 2 clauses:

3.     Ismi has a cute doll and I bought it in the supermarket.

Here, ‘a cute doll’ could be replaced by the pronoun ‘it’. As you see above, there’s conjunction ‘and’. Though it is the simple combination, it is not the effective one. So how to make it simpler than before?

We could make clause to combine both of them by adding question words such what, which, who, etc.

Note that the word ‘that’ is commoner than those, actually.

Simply, we will ‘explain’ more about the doll. Erase the pronoun, and change the conjunction into that or which.

è    Ismi has a cute doll (and) I bought it in the supermarket.

In this case, we replace and into that, but actually it can also use which. So it would be:

4.     Ismi has a cute doll that I bought in the supermarket. Or:

5.     Ismi has a cute doll, which I bought in the supermarket.

And... done! Quite simple, isn’t it?

Let’s do more examples. Now I have 2 sentences we should combine:

1.     Ati got the top rank in her school.

2.     I ate Ati’s chocolate yesterday.

Because of the possession pronoun, we use whose in this case. As usual, we can make the combining sentence as follow:

3.     Ati got the top rank in her school and I ate her chocolate yesterday.

You should know that we want to ‘explain’ about Ati. Then replace the pronoun her into whose and the clause will follow like this:

4.     Ati, whose chocolate I ate yesterday, got the top rank in her school.

Done!

B. Question Words vs. Relative Clauses

In the previous topic, we discuss question words. Now could you see the difference between question words and relative clauses in those sentences below?

1.     Whose ice cream did you eaten last night?

2.     Why she screams is the dark condition at night.

3.     Which trousers do you like?

4.     Who invites me every year to the hotel is Sheila.

5.     Do you want to give Julia the lily which vase is broken?

Could you see the difference between them?

Right. The most visible one is the pattern of both sentences. The question words are always in the interrogative pattern and the relative clauses are in the positive one. I’ll give you the answer:

1.     Whose ice cream did you eaten last night? (Question word)

2.     Why she screams is the dark condition at night. (relative clause)

3.     Which trousers do you like? (question word)

4.     Who invites me every year to the hotel is Sheila. (relative clause)

5.     Do you want to give Julia the lily which vase is broken? (relative clause)

That’s all I can give you today. Don’t worry to give me suggestion, correction, and as alike, because no one is perfect without such comments. I wish you understood and could practice them at school.

See you in the next topic,and thank you for visiting.