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2. We use which or that (in place of noun subjects and it) to refer to animals and things:<br />

That’s the cat which/that I photographed. Those are the cats which/that I<br />

photographed.<br />

That’s the photo which/that I took. Those are the photos which/that I took.<br />

However, we usually omit which and that. We say:<br />

That’s the cat I photographed. Those are the cats I photographed.<br />

That’s the photo I took. Those are the photos I took.<br />

‘Who (m)’, ‘which’ or ‘that’ as the objects of prepositions<br />

<strong>The</strong> position of prepositions in relative clauses is very important. We can say:<br />

1. He is the person to whom I wrote. (Never *to who*) (very formal)<br />

This is the pan in which I boiled the milk. (very formal)<br />

2. He is the person who(m) I wrote to. This is the pan which I boiled the milk in.<br />

3. However, we usually prefer to omit the relative and say:<br />

He is the person I wrote to. This is the pan I boiled the milk in.<br />

G. <strong>The</strong> complex <strong>sentence</strong>: ‘whose’; defining/non-defining clauses<br />

‘Whose’ + noun in relative clauses<br />

1. We use whose in place of possessive adjectives (my, your, his, etc.) to refer to people.<br />

Whose does not change when it refers to masculine, feminine, singular or plural:<br />

He’s the man/She’s the woman whose car was stolen. (Not *whose his car was stolen*)<br />

<strong>The</strong>y’re the people whose cars wire stolen. (Not *whose their cars were stolen*)<br />

2. We sometimes use whose in place of its to refer to things and animals:<br />

That’s the house whose windows were broken. (= the windows of which)<br />

3. We can also use whose with prepositions:<br />

He’s the man from whose house the pictures were stolen. (formal)<br />

He’s the man whose house the pictures were stolen from.<br />

Defining and non-defining clauses<br />

1. When we write relative clauses with who, which or whose, we have to decide whether to<br />

use comma ‘round the clauses’ or not.<br />

2. In <strong>sentence</strong>s like:<br />

I’ve never met anyone who can type as fast as you can.<br />

<strong>The</strong> magazine which arrived this morning is five days late.<br />

the relative clauses tell us which person or thing we mean. <strong>The</strong>y give us essential<br />

information which we cannot omit. We call them defining clauses because they ‘define’<br />

the person or thing they refer to. We never use commas in such <strong>sentence</strong>s.<br />

We never use commas with that in relative clauses:<br />

I’ve just had a phone call from the people (that) we met during our holidays.<br />

<strong>The</strong> wallet (that) you lost has been found.<br />

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