1. Adjective Clauses
DIFFICULT PROBLEMS

2. When can we use
whom, who, and whose in
an adjective clause?

3. Who as a relative pronoun:
You can use who to begin
adjective clause that follows
and modifies a person or
people.

4. For example:
The teacher who teaches
this class has been at Laney
for almost 20 years.
I didn’t like the person who
spoke to me on the phone.

5. The difference between who
and whom as relative
pronouns:

6. We use whom in formal
English when the adjective
clause modifies an object of
a verb or preposition:

7. For example:
I didn’t like the man whom I
saw near to door to my
house.
(I saw the man—the man is
the object)

8. For example:
There are 27 students in this
class, a few of whom don’t
come regularly.
Informal: There are 27
students, but a few of them
don’t come regularly.

9. For example:
He is the man from whom I
bought the car.
Informal: He is the man I
bought the car from.

10. Whom is formal, and you
don’t hear it much in
conversation.

11. Whose is used when the
embedded sentence has a
possessive.

12. What is a possessive?
This is my computer.
Our class starts at 8:30.
Laney’s ESL department used
be be larger.
The population of Oakland (=
Oakland’s population) is
is smaller than the population of
San Francisco.

13. Examples of relative pronoun
whose:
She is a teacher whose classes
are always difficult.
Main sentence: She is a teacher
Embedded sentence: Her
classes are always difficult.

14. Who, whom and whose can all
be simple question words:
Who is that?
Whom were you talking to?
(formal—in conversation,
Who were you talking to?
Whose computer is that?

15. Examples of relative pronoun
whose:
(Whose as a relative pronoun) can
refer to a thing as well as person.
Oakland is a city whose population
is growing.
Main sentence: Oakland is a city.
Embedded sentence: Oakland’s
population is growing.

16. WHO as a relative pronoun: Student
examples
Sam is a student who is learning
English at Laney College.
The girl who is wearing a red coat is
May.
My friend, who likes to dance, is
young.
Jun, who is a hard worker, lived in a
small town.

17. WHO as a relative pronoun: Student
examples
The man who is standing at the
corner is a movie star.
The woman who is wearing a blue
jacket is from China.
Mary and Gary, who have been
married for two years, are very
happy together.

18. WHOM as a relative pronoun:
Student examples
She is the kind of person whom
others consider shy.
My brother, with whom I spend a lot
of time, is an introvert.
Whom was my sister talking with?

19. WHOSE as a relative pronoun:
Student examples
He is a student whose father is a
teacher.
Yesterday I met Tom, whose wife is
from my hometown.
He is a shallow thinker whose
opinions aren’t worth much.

20. WHOSE as a relative pronoun:
Student examples
An introvert is a person whose
energies are activated by being
alone.
My favorite brother, whose hair is
the same color as mine, studies at
the same college I do.

21. WHOM as a relative pronoun:
Student examples
The lady whom I spoke with is the
company manager.
She is my writing classmate to
whom I was talking.

22. When can we use who or
that in an adjective clause?
Who and that are usually
interchangeable in adjective
clauses (= it often doesn’t
matter which one you use.)

23. For example:
The man who/that is standing at
the corner is a movie star.
The woman who/that is wearing
a blue jacket is from China.

24. What’s the difference
between an identifying and
non-identifying adjective
clause?

25. A non-identifying adjective
clause has commas.
An identifying adjective
clause has no commas.

26. Why do we use adjective
clauses?
There are two possible
reasons.

27. Sometimes the adjective
clause gives extra
information about the noun it
modifies. Is is a non-
identifying adjective
clause, and it has commas.

28. For example:
My mother, who has never
worked in a restaurant, does
not give very good tips.
My youngest sister, who
was a waitress when she
was in college, is a
generous tipper.

29. Sometimes we use and
adjective clause to identify
what or whom we are talking
about. This is an identifying
clause, and it has no
commas.

30. For example:
The students who were
absent last week need to
talk to me.
Community colleges that are
located in large urban areas
usually have ESL
departments.

31. Sometimes an adjective
clause can modify a whole
situation:

32. I have three sisters and two
brothers, which made
things pretty crowded when
we were growing up.

33. He was late and forgot to
bring any money, which
made me a little bit
annoyed.

34. When an adjective clause
modifies a whole situation in
this way, it is always a non-
identifying clause with
“which,”

35. Do we need commas?
Tim-Berners Lee is the
person who created the
World Wide Web.

36. Do we need commas?
Tim-Berners Lee, whose
parents were computer
scientists, was born in
England.

37. Do we need commas?
Many of the people who
made important inventions
in the computer industry are
now very rich.

38. Do we need commas?
However, Berners-Lee, who
works at MIT in
Boston, chose not to sell the
World Wide Web.

39. Do we need commas?
He believes in the power of
his invention, which can
reach everybody if it is not
expensive.

40. Some special things about
non-identifying clauses:

41. In an identifying clause, you
can use which or that:
Computer programs that are
hard to use often lose
money.
Computer programs which
are hard to use often lose
money.

42. In a non-identifying
clause, you can use which
but not that.
Laney College, which is in
Oakland, has many students.
**Laney College, that is in
Oakland, has many students.

43. The same thing happens with
who and that:
In an identifying clause,
The students who were absent
last week need to talk to me.
OR
The students that were absent
last week need to talk to me.

44. In a non-identifying clause,
you can only use who:
My youngest sister, who was a
waitress in college, is always a
generous tipper.
**My youngest sister, that was a
waitress in college, is always a
generous tipper.

45. Easy general rules:
Never use that as the relative
pronoun in a non-identifying
adjective clause.
An adjective clause after the
name of a person or place or
any capitalized noun will always
be non-identifying.

46. What is the difference
between a noun clause and
an adjective clause?

47. When can we omit the
relative pronoun, and when
do we have to use it?

48. Embed = bury
An adjective clause is a way
to embed one sentence
inside another.

49. You can leave out the
relative pronoun if it stands
for the object of the
embedded sentence.

50. The car that I bought was
very expensive.

51. The car that I bought was
very expensive.
“Car” is the object of the
embedded sentence “I
bought the car.”

52. Therefore, I can leave out
the relative pronoun:
The car I bought was very
expensive.

53. Main sentence:
The car was very expensive.
Embedded sentence:
I bought the car.