Sentences form the basic building blocks of the English language and there are many ways in which clauses or sentences can be linked to one another. One group of words English grammar uses to do this is the relatives. In this High English quiz we shall turn our attention to relatives, which are also called relative pronouns.
Relative clauses are introduced by relative pronouns. The reason why they are called relative pronouns is because they relate to the word that their relative clause modifies. Look at this sentence:
‘The lady WHO visited my home last night is my lecturer.’
Here the word in capitals relates to the lady ‘who visited my home last night’ and it is a relative or a relative pronoun. We also notice that ‘who visited my home last night’ is a relative clause.
[readmore]Relatives are relatively few in number and comprise the words 'who,' 'whom,' 'whose,' 'which,' 'where,' 'when' and 'that.' There are certain rules of grammar to be followed when using relatives. ‘Who’ and ‘whom’ are used in sentences containing reference to persons, as in these sentences:
‘A dermatologist is a doctor WHO treats skin diseases.’
‘Mr Tarapore, WHOM I like very much, is my cricket coach.’
‘Which’ is used in sentences containing reference to things, as in the sentence:
‘What is the name of the animal WHICH is found in Bandipur Wildlife Sanctuary?’
‘Whose’ is used when possession is to be expressed, as in the sentence:
'Ramakanth Achrekar, WHOSE disciple was Sachin Tendulkar, is a cricket coach in Mumbai.’
‘That’ is used in sentences containing reference to things or persons, as in these sentences:
‘The team THAT wins the IPL Cricket Tournament will get Rs 15 crore as prize money.’
‘The lady THAT I phoned yesterday was my sister.’
The relative ‘whose’ can be used for things, persons and animals, whilst the relative pronouns ‘where’ and ‘when’ are used with place and time nouns.
The quiz that follows exposes you to the different ways in which relatives are used in English grammar.
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The appropriate relative pronoun is 'where,' which is used with a place noun. The other options have the wrong relatives
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The appropriate relative pronoun is 'who,' which is used with a person. The other options have the wrong relatives
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'Which' and 'that' are relatives that can be used with things. In option 3 'Who' is the wrong usage for a thing
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''Who' is the appropriate relative pronoun. Note that the sentence has two commas. Usually, additional information is given under commas and if this information is not given the meaning of the sentence does not change. The relative pronouns in the other options are not appropriate
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'Whose' is the appropriate relative pronoun. Note that this sentence also gives additional information, which need not be relevant to the meaning of the sentence. In this sentence 'whose' is a relative pronoun of possession. The relative pronouns in the other options are not appropriate
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'Whom' is the appropriate relative pronoun for a person. The other options contain relatives which are inappropriate
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'When' is the appropriate relative pronoun. Note that 'when' is used with time nouns. The other options contain relatives which are inappropriate
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'Who' is the appropriate relative pronoun. Note that though 'that' can be used with persons also, in this particular case when commas are used to give additional information we cannot use 'that' for a person. The other options contain relatives which are inappropriate
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This sentence has three relative pronouns related to person, business and time noun. The other options have one wrong relative pronoun. Can you find out which?
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The reason why option 2 is also correct is because we can omit the use of the relative to economise on words and this is known as reduced relative usage. Option 1 uses the wrong relative
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