Sentence Complexity and Embedding

Adjective Clauses

Factors in Relative Pronoun Selection

Activity 16.3 shows us that only being concerned with the animacy of the referent isn’t enough for choosing the proper relative pronoun. Speakers of English must also consider the role of the pronoun within the adjective clause itself. That is, although an adjective clause acts as a noun modifier for a noun in the main clause, because the adjective clause itself is a clause, the pronoun plays a role within that clause, too. This is the same as the personal pronouns. Let’s look more closely at some examples.

If we begin with the personal pronouns, we will see the two ideas of referent and role within one’s own clause more clearly. Then we can look for the same features in the relative pronouns. Look at the two sentences in the examples.

Example 1: Joan is my best friend. I talk to her every day.

Example 2: Joan is my best friend. She calls me on the phone every day.

Both examples have the same first sentence, and both examples have a pronoun in the second sentence that refers to the person Joan in the first sentence. The two pronouns are different. Why are they different? They both have the same referent, don’t they? The answer to why the first example uses the pronoun her to refer to Joan, and the second sentence uses the pronoun she to refer to Joan lies in the role these pronouns have in their own sentences.

In the first example, the word her is chosen because the pronoun acts as the object of the preposition to. In the second example, the pronoun she is used to refer to Joan because in its own sentence, the pronoun acts as the subject. Thus, we can say that pronouns agree with their antecedents (referents) in animacy (and personal pronouns also agree in number and gender), but their case or grammatical role comes from their own sentence, not the sentence that the antecedent (referent) is in. This means it doesn’t matter that Joan is the subject of the first sentence, what matters is whether the pronoun itself is a subject or not.

The same is true for the relative pronouns. Relative pronouns must agree with their antecedents in animacy, but their grammatical role comes from their own clause, not from the main clause that the antecedent is in. Look at the examples that demonstrate this:

Example 1: Joan, whom I talk to every day, is my best friend.

Example 2: Joan, who calls me every day, is my best friend.

In these examples the main clause is exactly the same: Joan is my best friend, and the relative pronouns in both examples refer to the same noun, Joan. Why does the first example use whom and the second use who? Because the grammatical role of the pronoun in its own clause is different. In the first example, whom is the object of the preposition to, and in the second example, who is the subject of the clause who calls me every day.

So adding together the factors in relative pronoun selection, we see speakers must determine the animacy of the antecedent and then determine the grammatical role of the pronoun in its own clause. This produces a matrix of possible pairings. We can have 1) pronouns with human antecedents that act as subjects in their own clauses, 2) pronouns with human antecedents that act as direct objects in their own clauses, 3) pronouns with human antecedents that act as indirect objects in their own clauses, 4) pronouns with human antecedents that act as objects of prepositions in their own clauses, and 5) pronouns with human antecedents that act as possessives in their own clauses. Relative pronouns don’t act as subject complements, object complements, or appositives in their own clauses.

While it looks like there should be five different relative pronouns with human antecedents, there are actually fewer than five because all the various object roles collapse into one object pronoun form, whom, just as the personal pronouns do. That is, direct objects, indirect objects, and objects of prepositions all share one relative pronoun form. So we end up with three relative pronouns that refer to human antecedents: who, whom, and whose, which are used as subjects, objects, and possessives respectively.

We can do the same review of the grammatical roles for the relative pronouns that refer to nonhuman antecedents, and we discover even fewer forms. The pronoun which is used for nonhuman antecedents that act as subjects and objects in their own sentences. We can use the relative pronoun whose for living nonhuman antecedents, but speakers of English often use of which or another prepositional phrase construction to show possession of inanimate referents. For example, we can say, The dog whose chain broke ran away, but we aren’t likely to say, The table whose leg broke fell with a loud crash. We’re more likely to say, The table with the broken leg fell with a loud crash.

It may now occur to some that sentence 2 in Activity 16.4, Yesterday I saw a woman who I knew, and sentence 5, Yesterday I called a man who I worked for, both seem grammatical, but they use the subject pronoun who instead of the object pronoun whom when the relative pronouns in both sentences function as objects. The strict distinction between the relative pronouns who and whom is an issue of standardness, not grammaticality, and the use of who instead of whom in sentences that should use the object relative pronoun is gaining acceptance even in standard English. That is, the English language is continuing to change, and the use of whom is becoming more limited. In fact, its use is becoming restricted to sentences where the relative pronoun functions as the object of a preposition, as in sentence 6 in Activity 16.4.

When we include the preposition at the beginning of the adjective clause, we must use whom, but if we leave the preposition at the end of the main clause, we can use either whom or who as the relative pronoun. With adjective clauses it is important to remember the difference between prepositions and phrasal verbs. The phrasal verb put up with has two phrasal verb particles, and they can not be placed at the beginning of the adjective clause with the relative pronoun. The true prepositional phrases with the preposition for in sentences 3-6 and 7-8 show that the preposition can be located at the beginning of the adjective clause, but if it is in this location, whom must be used for a human antecedent. It might be worth noting that one of the standard rules is that a sentence should never end with a preposition, so in standard English usage, a preposition in a relative clause should always be located at the beginning of the clause with the relative pronoun. Of course, this is a prescriptive rule and few native speakers follow this rule exactly.

In fact, at this point, some may be thinking that they wouldn’t give the information in sentences 1 and 2 with either of the sentences, but would say it a different way. Let’s look at other options speakers of English have.

Activity 16.5: Understanding Relative Pronouns 3

Exercise A – Read each sentence and put an asterisk in front of the sentences that are ungrammatical and put an X in front of the sentences that you would not be likely to say or write.

_____ 1. Yesterday I saw a man who was picking his nose.
_____ 2. Yesterday I saw a man that was picking his nose.
_____ 3. Yesterday I saw a man was picking his nose.

_____ 4. Yesterday I saw a house which was painted turquoise.
_____ 5. Yesterday I saw a house that was painted turquoise.
_____ 6. Yesterday I saw a house was painted turquoise.

_____ 7. Yesterday I saw a woman whom I knew.
_____ 8. Yesterday I saw a woman who I knew.
_____ 9. Yesterday I saw a woman that I knew.
_____ 10. Yesterday I saw a woman I knew.

_____ 11. Yesterday I called a man whom I worked for.
_____ 12. Yesterday I called a man who I worked for.
_____ 13. Yesterday I called a man that I worked for.
_____ 14. Yesterday I called a man I worked for.

_____ 15. Yesterday I called a man for whom I worked.
_____ 16. Yesterday I called a man for who I worked.
_____ 17. Yesterday I called a man for that I worked.
_____ 18. Yesterday I called a man for I worked.

_____ 19. Yesterday a player made derogatory statements which he was suspended for.
_____ 20. Yesterday a player made derogatory statements that he was suspended for.
_____ 21. Yesterday a player made derogatory statements he was suspended for.
_____ 22. Yesterday a player made derogatory statements for which he was suspended.
_____ 23. Yesterday a player made derogatory statements for that he was suspended.
_____ 24. Yesterday a player made derogatory statements for he was suspended.

_____ 25. Insolence is a behavior which I won’t put up with.
_____ 26. Insolence is a behavior that I won’t put up with.
_____ 27. Insolence is a behavior I won’t put up with.

Exercise B – Now study and describe the differences between the sentences you marked and the ones you didn’t mark

Answers

Adjective Clause 3