Relative clauses

A relative clause is a constituent of an NP and provides a description of the referent of the head noun, parallel to an adjectival or adverbial modifier— compare the tall man, the man [in the corner] and the man [the man kicked John].

A relative clause has the same basic structure as a main clause, with subject, tensed verb as head of the predicate, etc. It must contain an NP that has the same reference as the head of the superordinate NP in whose structure the relative clause functions, i.e. the man [who kicked John]. A relative pronoun is placed at the beginning of the clause and the occurrence of the coreferential NP is omitted. The relative pronoun is which if the coreferential NP was a non-human in subject or object function or following a preposition, who if a human (or, for some speakers, a higher animal) in subject function, whom if a human in object function or following a preposition (whom is now being replaced by who in object function), whose if a human or non-human in possessive function, where if a locational, and when if a temporal element. Thus I saw the dog [which bit John], I watched the man [who hit John], I observed the tramp [who(m) John hit], I discovered the man/dog [whose house John destroyed], I saw the place [where you were born], I remember the day [when you got married].

Where the coreferential NP was in subject function the relative pronoun both (a) marks the clause as a relative clause, and (b) fills the subject slot (recall that a tensed VP must normally be preceded by some sort of overt subject NP). Where the coreferential NP was in non-subject function then the relative pronoun only has property (a).

There are two major varieties of relative clauses, illustrated by:

(3) The firemen who the managers sacked will meet in the engine shed

(4) The firemen, who the managers sacked, will meet in the engine shed

Sentence (3) implies that only some firemen were sacked by the managers, and just those fireman will meet. This is called a ‘restrictive relative clause’ since it restricts the reference of the head noun firemen (to: just those firemen who were sacked). Sentence (4) implies that all the firemen are meeting, and that they were all sacked; it is called a ‘non-restrictive relative clause’ since it does not delimit the reference of the head noun.

A proper noun has unique reference and so any relative clause to it must be non-restrictive, e.g. Amos, who I introduced you to last week, is coming to tea. In a sentence like My brother who lives in Athens won the lottery, the relative clause must be non-restrictive if I have only one brother but may be restrictive if I have more than one, then indicating which of my brothers won the prize.

One can in fact usually infer from the intonation what type of relative clause is involved. A non-restrictive relative is like an inserted, parenthetical comment, and is set off by contrastive intonation (shown by commas in the written style). It could be considered as not really a part of the superordinate NP, but rather as an independent constituent in apposition with it. The relative pronoun in a non-restrictive clause is not likely to be replaced by that, and could not be omitted.

In a restrictive clause, a wh- relative pronoun (other than whose) may be replaced by that (which is here functioning as a kind of relative pronoun); or it can be omitted, so long as the coreferential NP was not in subject function in the relative clause. Thus, alternatives to (3) are The firemen that the managers sacked . . . and The firemen the managers sacked . . . (There are stylistic conditions operating—a relative pronoun is more likely to be replaced by that or omitted in informal talk, or when referring to some matter of little consequence, and a wh- form is more likely to be retained in a formal speech style, e.g. in a debate or a meeting, or when talking about some really significant happening.)

We mentioned that if the coreferential NP had been in subject slot then we can now think of this slot as being filled by the relative pronoun. This is why it cannot normally be omitted: a tensed verb must be preceded by a subject NP. Thus, if only some managers sacked firemen one could say, with a restrictive relative clause:

(5) The managers who/that sacked firemen have saved money for the company

and who/that cannot be omitted.

Restrictive relative clauses that have a coreferential subject NP and refer to present time can have a reduced version; the relative pronoun is omitted and the verb is put in -ing form. Thus, corresponding to

(6) Those managers who/that are sacking firemen are saving money for the company

we can have:

(7) Those managers sacking firemen are saving money for the company

In the case of sack, and other verbs which refer to present time through the be ... -ing imperfective auxiliary, it looks as if (7) is derived from (6) by omission of the relative pronoun and the tensed form of be (with the -ing on the retained verb being a residue of the be ... -ing auxiliary).

However, reduced relatives like (7) also occur with those verbs that use perfective present, rather than the imperfective be ... -ing, to refer to present time. That is, we get Anyone owning a gun must register it and People knowing the whereabouts of the diamonds are asked to keep quiet, which relate to Anyone who owns a gun must register it and People who know the whereabouts of the diamonds are asked to keep quiet rather than to the ungrammatical *Anyone who is owning a gun must register it and *People who are knowing the whereabouts of the diamonds are asked to keep quiet. A related example is Anyone having seen the diamonds should keep quiet, which relates to the previous present sentence Anyone who has seen the diamonds should keep quiet rather than to *Anyone who is having seen the diamonds should keep quiet (the auxiliary be ... -ing can follow but not precede have ... -en).

These reduced present-time restrictive relatives are only found when the coreferential NP was in subject function. There is no reduced counterpart of Those firemen (who/that) the managers are sacking will meet in the engine shed; that is, we do not get *Those firemen the managers sacking will meet in the engine shed, parallel to (7).

A restrictive relative clause may sometimes be moved out of its NP to the end of the main clause, usually being set off from the rest of the clause by appositional intonation; this is found in colloquial styles (That man got sacked, who you were praising yesterday) and also in legal English (Those persons will be prosecuted who are found in possession of illegal firearms). Such an extraposed clause must retain its relative pronoun. (This is an example of a general preference for a ‘heavy’ constituent to come at the end of a main clause)

There are a number of other constructions that may relate to relative clauses; but there are varying opinions among grammarians of English about their exact syntactic status. Some scholars talk in terms of a special subtype of restrictive relative clause in which the determiner (or determiner plus head) of the superordinate NP is fused with the relative pronoun, as in the (b) sentences of:

(8a) Those recipes which she used are marked in red

(8b) What recipes she used are marked in red

(9a) Any recipes which she used are marked in red

(9b) Whatever recipes she used are marked in red

(10a) That which he wrote was unbelievable

(10b) What he wrote was unbelievable

(11a) Our dog bites anyone who comes into the garden

(11b) Our dog bites whoever comes into the garden

(12a) He lives in the place where you’d like to live

(12b) He lives where you’d like to live

The subordinate clauses in the (b) sentences of (8)–(12) have some of the properties of relative clauses but also behave in some ways like interrogatives.

Let us now return to non-restrictive relative clauses. Suppose all managers are sacking firemen; we can say:

(13) The managers, who are sacking firemen, are saving money for the company

We noted that the relative clause appears to be a parenthetical comment— almost an intrusion into the body of the main clause—and it is set off by contrastive intonation or commas. There are also constructions like:

(14) The managers are saving money for the company, sacking firemen

Now in (14) the comment sacking firemen is plainly non-restrictive, suggesting that (14) might be taken as derived from (13), with a reduced relative clause (who are being omitted) that is moved to the end of the main clause. A comment such as sacking firemen in (14) may sometimes be retained in its original NP or else be placed at the beginning of the main clause. Compare:

(15a) John, who was wheezing noisily, came into the room

(15b) John, wheezing noisily, came into the room

(15c) John came into the room, wheezing noisily

(15d) John came, wheezing noisily, into the room

(15e) Wheezing noisily, John came into the room

We also get constructions of this type where the ‘host’ NP, in the main clause, is a pronoun, e.g.

(16a) He came, wheezing noisily, into the room

(16b) He came into the room, wheezing noisily

(16c) Wheezing noisily, he came into the room

However, English generally does not allow a relative clause to follow a pronoun; that is, one does not get:

(16d) *He, who was wheezing noisily, came into the room

This suggests that (16a–c) (and thus also (14) and (15b–e)) should not be regarded as involving reduced relative clauses, but instead as being a distinct construction type—simultaneous appositional clauses.

There are similar appositional constructions where a ‘comment clause’ relates to the object of the main clause (although here it could not normally be moved to the beginning of the main clause):

(17a) We saw John in the garden, doing his weekly chores

alongside the non-restrictive relative clause construction:

(17b) We saw John, who was doing his weekly chores, in the garden

Note that sentences of this type may be ambiguous as to whether a final comment relates to subject or to object of the main clause, e.g. John painted Mary dressed could correspond to John, who was dressed, painted Mary or to John painted Mary, who was dressed (and this is in turn ambiguous between a situation in which Mary posed dressed and one where she was dressed only on the canvas, with John having used his imagination as to what she looked like under her clothes).