Apostila · B2
Defining and non-defining
| Pronoun | We use it for | Example |
|---|---|---|
| who | people | The colleague who sent the email. |
| which | things and animals | The report which arrived late. |
| that | people or things | The client that called yesterday. |
| whose | possession | The manager whose team doubled. |
| where | places | The office where we met. |
| when | time | The year when everything changed. |
| why | reason | The reason why she left. |
whom is the formal version of who. Here is the easy way to know which one you need.
You rarely need it. In everyday English people say the colleague I work with and who did you call? Keep whom for contracts and formal writing. Using it in a normal conversation does not sound more advanced, it sounds out of place.
Relative clauses give us information about people or things mentioned before. We use relative pronouns to connect the ideas.
Instead of two short sentences, you get one. The pronoun replaces she and connects the two ideas.
There are two types, and the difference changes the meaning of what you say.
A defining relative clause gives essential information about the person, thing, place, or time we are talking about. Without it, the sentence would be unclear or incomplete. Commas are not necessary.
The woman who runs the finance team called me this morning.
Which woman? There are forty in the building.
This is the report that we discussed on Monday.
Which report? Twenty arrive every week.
That's the office where I worked for six years.
Which office? The clause identifies it.
The employees who work remotely get a stipend.
Only the remote ones. The others do not.
If you delete the clause, the sentence stops saying what you meant. That is the test.
A non-defining relative clause gives extra information about the person, thing, place, or time. The sentence is still complete without it. These clauses are separated by commas.
My manager, who joined last year, is from Recife.
You have one manager. The clause only adds information.
Our head office, which is in São Paulo, has three floors.
Delete it and the sentence still works.
Ana, whose team doubled in size, got promoted.
A proper name is already identified, so the clause is always extra.
The employees, who work remotely, get a stipend.
Everyone works remotely and everyone gets it.
Compare the last example here with the last example in the previous section. Same words, same order, two different realities. In speech, the commas are real pauses.
1. Both commas are obligatory. One before, one after.
2. That is not possible. Use who, which, whose, where, when.
3. The pronoun can never be omitted.
In defining relative clauses, the pronoun can often be left out. Native speakers leave it out most of the time, and this is what makes speech sound natural instead of memorised.
The report that I sent you. → The report I sent you.
The person who I mentioned. → The person I mentioned.
The meeting that we cancelled. → The meeting we cancelled.
But it does not always work. Look at what comes immediately after the pronoun.
A verb comes next? Keep the pronoun. It is doing the action.
The colleague who sent the email.
A person or a thing comes next? You can drop it. Someone else is doing the action.
The report (that) I sent you.
You can never omit the pronoun in a non-defining clause, and you can never use that there either.
Use who, which, that, whose, where or when.
Only one option works in each sentence.
Rewrite each pair as one sentence. Add commas where they are needed.
Write D or ND, then add commas only where they are needed. The information in brackets is the context.
Write about your real life. Then check your commas with the test from this handout.