Complex Sentences: Relative Clauses

A relative clause defines someone or something in the main clause. We use such conjunctions as that, which, when, where, who and many others to introduce a relative clause:

She was the only person who had a look of utter devastation on her face as she heard the news.
He stared into her cold blue eyes that didn’t promise anything good.
It was an unwelcoming hotel which had been abandoned for a long time.

The conjunction who replaces the noun in the main clause so that we don’t have to repeat it:

I was sitting in a cafe on the beach as I saw a man who was walking his funny pug.

A relative pronoun can either be a subject or an object in the relative clause:

Three days ago, we bought a car which turned out to be in pretty good shape. (subject)
Three days ago, we bought a car which you had been talking about for a month. (object)

A defining relative clause gives us the information that is necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence given. It defines either a noun or a pronoun in the main clause:

Is this the size that you’re looking for?
Could, all the people who have bought the tickets online for the concert follow into the right entrance?

Without relative clauses, these sentences don’t make sense.

Is this the size? (this sentence doesn’t mean anything).
Could all the people follow into the right entrance? (it doesn’t give us the full information).

We can use all the relative pronouns in a defining relative clause:

Yesterday I came across a necklace that (which) my granny had received as a wedding gift.

In a relative clause, we can omit the relative pronoun when it’s an object:

They sent her to a summer camp you had strongly recommended.

A non-defining relative clause gives us additional information about a noun or a pronoun in the main clause. If we omit the clause, the main part will still make sense:

Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet.
Arthur Rimbaud, who was engaged in a hectic romantic relationship with fellow poet Paul Verlaine, was a French poet.
Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet who laid the foundation for modernist literature.

Non-defining relative clauses demonstrate consecutive actions:

I lent the money to James, who went to the bank and closed his loan.

We always use relative pronouns which or who to introduce a non-defining clause and never use that:

My sister, who has been training as a yoga coach for 3 years, is going to open her own yoga school very soon.
This new kindergarten, which has recently been built near our house, can grant admission for more than 150 kids.

In written English, we use commas with a non-defining relative clause and don’t use any with a defining relative clause.

The cafe, which is dimly lit, always attracts book readers who want to spend time in a calm place.
A woman who was holding a little pup in her hands entered the cafe.

We can add a non-defining relative clause at the end of the sentence to comment on the information in the main clause. It’s called a sentence relative.

We came to the destination point and found out that there was no one there, which was rather unexpected.
I am very bad at time management, which is annoying.
We have to pay 100 USD for the custom clearance, which is outrageous!