Relative clause
A
relative clause is a kind of subordinate clause, one of whose arguments shares a referent with a main clause element on which the subordinate clause is grammatically dependent. Typically, a relative clause modifies a noun or noun phrase, and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments within the relative clause has the same referent as that noun or noun phrase. For example, in the sentence
I met a man who wasn't there, the subordinate clause
who wasn't there is a relative clause, since it modifies the noun
man, and uses the pronoun
who to indicate that the same "man" is referred to within the subordinate clause. In many European languages, relative clauses are introduced by a special class of pronouns called
relative pronouns; such as
who in the example just given. In other languages, relative clauses may be marked in different ways: they may be introduced by a special class of conjunctions called
relativizers; the main verb of the relative clause may appear in a special morphological variant; or a relative clause may be indicated by word order alone.