Find the person or thing shared by two sentences. Then place the identifying description after that noun. This lesson focuses on defining relative clauses: descriptions that help the reader know which person or thing we mean.
Identify the person or thing
The girl is holding a blue folder and The girl is our class monitor refer to the same girl. One idea can become a description of girl, helping the reader identify her.
These identifying descriptions normally have no separating commas. Non-defining clauses add extra information and follow different rules, so do not transfer every substitution in this lesson to every relative clause.
Choose a pronoun without repeating the subject
In these defining clauses, who can refer to people and which to things. That can also refer to people or things in many clauses of this kind. Choose with the noun and intended meaning in mind.
When who/which/that is the subject of the relative clause, put its verb next without another he/she/it: the boy who helps us, not the boy who he helps us. These subject relative pronouns cannot be left out. Omitting a pronoun in another role is a separate pattern.
Worked example: identifying the class monitor
These original sentences give an identifying action and then the girl’s role. Put the description after the noun it belongs with.
Join the ideas and check for repetition
Name the noun being described, then choose a pronoun or join the sentences. Accept more than one answer when its role and meaning fit.
Try it yourself
Use defining relative clauses to identify the people or things.
- The boy ___ carries a green bag is my cousin. Supply a possible relative pronoun.
- I found the book. The book has a yellow cover. Join with which or that.
- Correct: The girl who she sits beside me is Ada.
Show an explained answer
- Who or that works: the clause identifies boy, and the pronoun is the subject of carries.
- I found the book which has a yellow cover. That is also possible. The clause identifies book, and which/that is the subject of has.
- The girl who sits beside me is Ada. Remove she because who is already the subject of sits. Do not simply omit this who.
