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The Relative Clause
The Relative clause or Adjectival clause performs the duty of an adjective in a sentence
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It is normally introduced by a
relative pronoun
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The first line in the main clause is followed by a series
of clauses that describes the antecedent
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They wind round the main clause like thread around a ball
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(Yahweh is a
personal noun, the butcher is also a personal noun)
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Now let us deal with the relative clause in detail
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Here the relative clause is “that men do”
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Same is with the next example from Pope
"Here lies that peerless peer Lord Peter
who broke the laws of God , of man and metre"
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They are introduced by whereon , whereupon , which etc
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I tore up the picture, which greatly upset Jack"
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Here the relative pronoun "which" introduces the act of
tearing up the picture rather than the "picture"
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See another example ,
"A mad man was aiming blows at an imaginary enemy, which amused us very much"
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A non defining relative clause of this kind is sometimes made into a separate sentence as in the
following example ,
"That's what he told me
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In this example , ' which ' in the second sentence means ' and that '
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Normally a relative pronoun performs two functions:
1) It functions as either the subject or object of the verb in a relative clause
example : "He that is down needs fear no fall"
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2) It performs the duty of a conjunction i
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It functions as
an integral part of the sentence and hence it is indispensable
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Example : "The woman who supplies milk is moving out"
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It is indispensable in the sense that removal of the relative clause may
lead to total collapse in the meaning of the sentence
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Here the adjective "red" is indispensable as otherwise we will not know which pen to fetch
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It is not an integral part of
the sentence and the removal of it may not affect the meaning of the sentence
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Here the relative clause "which is the largest of all land animals" only imparts additional
information and the removal of it does not cause change in meaning , thus it is non-defining
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Here "red" can be dispensed with as it provides only additional information
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The main differences are indicated below
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Example : "The man whom you called yesterday has arrived "
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3) When we use 'that' as a relative pronoun the preposition can come only at the end
Example : "This is the hill that I dreamt about last night"
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"This is the hill which I dreamt about last night"
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4) 'who' is preferred to 'that' if the antecedent is a personal noun
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5) when the antecedent consists of many words , wh-relative pronouns are preferred
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" It will make us all profoundly wise, wiser than the wisest person who has ever lived "
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Example : "All that is well ends well "
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2) The committee who were responsible for the seminar met yesterday
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4) The reason that he has left is not convincing
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In formal style we use ' whom ' instead of who in such sentences
Sentence 2 is also correct ,
Since collective nouns can be treated as personal when they have plural concord
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Whereas in sentence 4 , is 'that he left' a relative clause which qualifies 'reason' or
a noun clause put in apposition(;) to the noun 'reason' ?
The answer depends on whether you look at 'that' as a conjunction or as a relative pronoun

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