Relative pronouns

Charles Dube

The whole purpose of going over these topics is to help you learners to be able to identify pronouns and understand their functions in sentences. You should ensure that, in using pronouns, it is clear to what or whom they refer.

The relative pronouns you are most likely to use frequently are, “who”, “which” and “that”. They have two functions in sentences: they stand in place of a noun. They act as conjunctions and are related to the noun which comes immediately before them:

Example: The car just missed the child who was crossing the road. The boys chased the dog which was threatening to bite them. “Who” is always used for people. “Which” and “that” are used for animals and objects. A common mistake with relative pronouns is using them in such a way as to male them refer to the wrong noun as shown in the following example: The truck hit the tree which was going too fast.

This sounds as if the tree was going too fast. It should be written as: The tree was hit by the truck which was going too fast or the truck, which was going too fast, hit the tree. Note that “that” and “which” do the same job. (Who = people, which = animals and objects). Work through several examples to get used to this. The woman washed the clothes. The clothes were dirty.

The decision to make is whether these two sentences should be joined by “who” or “which”. The woman washed the clothes, which were dirty.

It is very important to use relative pronouns correctly or the meaning of a sentence can be muddled. Look at this example: The monkey climbed the tree, which was injured. What information is the sentence giving? Obviously, one might say the injured monkey climbed the tree. But if you investigate the sentence carefully you will see that it actually says that the monkey climbed the injured tree. To correct this there is need to rearrange the words so that it says what it should.

The tree was climbed by the monkey, which was injured or the monkey, which was injured, climbed the tree. The second example is by far the better of the two but the commas surrounding the clause “which was injured” are an added complication here. Concentrate on grasping the relationship between the relative pronoun and the noun to which it refers.

Work on these two examples to see if you understand this: The patient was treated kindly by the nurse who had a broken leg. The flowers grew well in the tubs which had spiky leaves.

Who or which? Join these pairs of sentences with who or which. I have a brother. My brother lives in Harare. Nkosi bought a football. The football was red in colour. I lost the pen. The pen was a gift from my sister.

Use who or which to complete these sentences: Have you seen the new family – moved in next door. The book – I am reading is very exciting. She baked a cake – everyone said was delicious. We helped the old lady – had hurt her leg.
What does it mean? Sort out the sentences so that they say what they mean. The dog chased the rabbit which was called Rex.

My friend has a baby brother who lives next door. The old car skidded into the gate which had a flat tyre.

The apple fell off the tree which was ripe. The child said hello to the teacher who was playing on the climbing frame. Having understood pronouns, you can proceed to adjectives or describing words.

Using adjectives makes a piece of writing more interesting and they give more information. Consider this sentence example: The enormous crocodile opened its huge mouth to show its sharp, pointed teeth. The adjectives in this sentence are: enormous, huge, sharp and pointed.

Once you have understood that adjectives carry interest and information move on to look at your choice of adjectives. To achieve this, you need to avoid using common over-used adjectives like: The big dog chased the children coming from school. The old man lived in a little house.

The common overused adjectives like big, old and little can be replaced as follows: big – enormous/massive/gigantic. Old – ancient/elderly/doddery. Little –tiny, cramped. You can substitute; pale, bad, dark and cold with these depending on the situation provided. Pale –white/colourless/light/sallow/ashen/pallid.

Bad – evil, wicked, mean/ faulty/harmful/rotten. Dark – black/dim/shady/unlit/murky/ ebony. Cold – cool/chilly/frosty/icy/wintry/arctic. You can boost your knowledge of adjectives by making an adjective alphabet. For each letter of the alphabet, write an adjective which begins with that letter.

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