Benutzer-Werkzeuge

Webseiten-Werkzeuge


englisch:relative-clauses

Dies ist eine alte Version des Dokuments!


Relative Clauses

Introduction

TASK

Look at the example sentences. Do you notice any differences between a and b?

  1. Example
    1. There was a bird which flew past my window.
    2. The bird, which was about 2 metres long, scared me a lot.
  2. Example
    1. At the bus stop there was a man who was singing loudly.
    2. This man, who also didn’t wear any trousers, annoyed many of the people there.

Show answer

Hide answer

In the two a-sentences the information in the relative clauses is necessary for a complete understanding of the sentences.

In the b-sentences the relative clauses add extra information that is not necessary to understand the rest of the sentence.

  • a: defining relative clauses
  • b: non-defining relative clauses

Defining and non-defining relative clauses

A defining relative clause adds necessary information to the main clause. Without it, the main clause would be incomplete. There are no commas.

A non-defining relative clause adds extra (zusätzlich) information to the main clause. It is not necessary and the main clause is complete without it. There are commas between the main clause and the relative clause.

Practice

Here are some more sentences. Try to figure out which ones contain defining and which ones are non-defining relative clauses.
  1. John Muir was one of the people who fought against the dam project.
  2. John Muir, who was born in Scotland, fought to make Yosemite a national park.
  3. One out of 25 people who live in the USA are there illegally.
  4. Mexicans, who usually do unskilled work, make up a large part of the illegal immigrants.
  5. Some people want to get tough on illegal immigrants, who they think should be arrested.
  6. Most immigrants who want to cross the border manage to do it.

Show answer

Hide answer

  1. “who fought against the dam project”: defining relative clause
  2. “who was born in Scotland”: non-defining relative clause
  3. “who live in the USA”: defining relative clause
  4. “who usually do unskilled work”: non-defining relative clause
  5. “who they think should be arrested”: non-defining relative clause
  6. “who want to cross the border”: defining relative clause

Videos

Exercises

Contact Clauses

englisch/relative-clauses.1493724279.txt.gz · Zuletzt geändert: 06.08.2020 (10:37) (Externe Bearbeitung)

Donate Powered by PHP Valid HTML5 Valid CSS Driven by DokuWiki