Your Complete Guide to Relative Clauses

A relative clause is a part of a sentence that gives us more information about the person or thing we’re talking about. (Relative clauses are sometimes called adjective clauses.) “The man who lives by the river.” Who lives by the river is a relative clause that gives us more information about the man. *Relative clauses are sometimes called adjective clauses because they do the same job as an adjective. They give us more information about a noun. We can add more information to our sentences using relative clauses. A clause is a part of a sentence. If a clause can function by itself as its own sentence we call this an independent clause. If a clause cannot function by itself as its own sentence it’s a dependent clause. It depends on the original part of the sentence to make sense. I will visit my hometown in Canada this August, it’s much cooler than Tokyo. Clauses are often separated by a pause when we talk or a comma when we write. The first clause from our example sentence is an independent clause. It makes perfect sense as its own sentence. “I will visit my hometown in Canada this August.” The second clause, the part of the sentence that follows the comma, is a dependent clause. It cannot be used by itself as a sentence. It wouldn’t make sense. “…it’s much cooler than Tokyo.” What’s much cooler than Tokyo? The 2nd clause depends on the first clause to make sense. Relative clauses are dependent clauses that start with a relative pronoun like who (whose), that, which, and when, or a relative adverb like where.