omission of relative pronouns: contact clauses
contact clauses using prepositional verbs
superlatives, 'all', everything +'that'.,
Relative clauses use relative pronouns to determine or modify nouns in the sentence. So, it would be the same to say
Well-built houses are more comfortable
than use a relative pronoun and say
Houses which are well-built are more comfortable
This implies that only well-built houses are more comfortable, which brings us to a first distinction into:
a. defining relative clauses: give relevant information about the noun and admit omission
ex: Those children who are running in the first positions don't belong to our school
ex: The goats we saw yesterday evening must have escaped and become wild
So, IN DEFINING RELATIVE CLAUSES, relative pronouns in different forms will come up depending on two factors:
1. whether the antecedent of the relative pronoun functions as a: (top)
a. subject
b. object
c. possessor
d. adverbial entity
2. whether the antecedent is:
a. person
b. thing
c. whole sentence
If we combine both criteria, the following table can be created which displays the variety of relative pronouns in relative clauses. Follow the colours to see where each criteria falls in table1.(top)
| person | thing | whole sentence | |
| subject | WHO/THAT
:
She is the person who/that repairs the computers. |
WHICH/THAT
That's the lorry which/that broke the traffic lights. |
WHICH
Living in boat, which many people find romantic, is humid sometimes |
|
object -dir, indir, prepos-:contact clauses the preposition comes to the end |
WHO/WHOM/THAT-omission
The hunters who/whom/that we heard last night have left. or using omission The hunters(---) we heard last night That's the person (---) I talked to
|
WHICH/THAT/omission
That CD which/ that we bought yesterday didn't sound well or That CD (---) we bought yesterday didn't sound well
|
|
| possessive | WHOSE
Those children whose book has the wrong pages, please let me know WHOSE+ PREPOSITION He's the guest whose car we had to wait for at the wedding
|
WHOSE ('of
which'-less freq.)
They had to put away all the planes whose wings had been damaged by the typhoon |
(top) |
| adverbial | WHERE:
The place where I was born is the
coldest in Greece.
WHEN: Tell me the day when you want to leave. WHY: That's (the reason) why I never go out at night |
(top) |
notes:
1. in contact clauses, whenever we have a prepositional verb and the antecedent is an object we have two possibilities
a. The person about whom we were talking suddenly appeared in the room
b. The person(----) we were talking about suddenly appeared in the room.
Observe that ----------------------------------about comes after the prepositional verb and the relative pronoun is lost.
c. also in sentences using whose:
ex: She's the boy whose sister I'm always thinking about (top)
also in non-defining the preposition comes to the end, but the relative does not disappear :
Caesar, who our teacher used to talk to us about when we were at school, turned out to be a shy person.
2. it is also possible to omit relative adverbs
The place where I was born--------------The place I was born in or The place I was born
3. superlatives always form contact clauses with omission:
ex: This is the coldest place I've ever visited
all, everything, anything + that is also a very common structure
ex: My cat ate everything (that) I gave him: he was very hungry
ex: Anything (that) I said was criticized, so I shut up.
b. non-defining relative clauses: give additional information about the noun AND USE COMMAS. They DO NOT admit omission
ex: White sharks, which ,as you know, are the most dangerous , have tremendous strength in their jaws.
This implies that all white sharks have very strong jaws and are obviously dangerous, which comes as something added
The relative pronouns can be organized in a similar table to the one above, but no omission or contact clauses can be found here.
Table 2
| person | thing | whole sentence | |
| subject | WHO
:
James, who has helped my brother with maths for years, has left school. |
WHICH
Lobsters, which are really cheap in the Caribbean, can be bought now for a reasonable price. |
WHICH
Living in boat, which many people find romantic, is humid sometimes |
|
object (dir, indir, prepos): the preposition comes to the end |
WHO/WHOM Witches, who have been considered like evil for ages, are now fashionable |
WHICH
Mount Everest, which used to be a remote place, can now be reached on organized trips. |
|
| possessive | WHOSE
Mary, whose brother helped me with the plumbing yesterday, hasn't called me for ages.
|
WHOSE ('of
which'-less freq.)
The Eiffel Tower, whose design was revolutionary at its time, is still a marvelous structure |