I WISH y IF ONLY

Relative clauses – defining relative clauses

Relative clauses add extra information to a sentence by defining a noun. They are usually divided into two types – defining relative clauses and non-defining relative clauses.

Defining relative clauses

Look at this sentence:

• The woman who lives next door works in a bank.

‘who lives next door’ is a defining relative clause. It tells us which woman we are talking about.

Look at some more examples:

• Look out! There’s the dog that bit my brother.
• The film that we saw last week was awful.
• This is the skirt I bought in the sales.

Can you identify the defining relative clauses? They tell us which dog, which film and which skirt we are talking about.

Relative pronouns

Relative clauses are usually introduced by a relative pronoun (usually who, which, that, but when, where and whose are also possible)

With defining relative clauses we can use who or that to talk about people. There is no difference in meaning between these, though 'who' tends to be preferred in more formal use.