Relative clauses give us additional information about a sentence.
The dog that was in the park is a labrador
We use a relative pronoun or adverb to introduce the relative clause: who, which, that, whose, whom, when, where, why
WHO: this pronoun is used to talk about people
My friend Juan is the person who won the race
WHICH: which is used under one condition:
We are talking about an object: this is the car which I was talking about
THAT: we use that to talk both about people and objects; it can replace who and which, but it is less formal
He is the boy that everybody is talking about
You broke the vase that your grand-mother brought from China
*caution* there is one instance on which we cannot use that: in non defining clauses.
A non-defining clause gives extra information that is not necessary for us to understand the phrase,whereas defining clauses give us information we need to understand it. For example, a non-defining clause is:
Daniel, who I work with, likes baking
The information is not necessary because we could understand the sentences without the non-defining clause: Daniel likes baking,
On the other hand, a defining clause is necessary for us to understand the whole idea:
These are some of the stray cats that my grand-father feeds.
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