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A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. An example is the word which in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the relative pronoun which introduces the relative clause, which modifies the noun house. A relative pronoun plays the role of a noun phrase within that clause.
The English relative words are words in English used to mark a clause, noun phrase or preposition phrase as relative. The central relative words in English include who, whom, whose, which, why, and while, as shown in the following examples, each of which has the relative clause in bold: We should celebrate the things which we hold dear.
Some varieties of English use what as a relative pronoun. For example, in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, a Ravager says, "For it is a name what strikes fear into the hearts of anyone what hears it." What as a relative pronoun appeared on the front-page of United Kingdom newspaper The Sun on 11 April 1992 in the headline "It's The Sun Wot Won It."
For example, in the English sentence "The person whom I saw yesterday went home", the relative clause "whom I saw yesterday" modifies the head noun person, and the relative pronoun whom refers back to the referent of that noun. The sentence is equivalent to the following two sentences: "I saw a person yesterday.
Regular relative clauses are a class of dependent clause (or "subordinate clause") [1] that usually modifies a noun. [2] [3] They are typically introduced by one of the relative pronouns who, whom, whose, what, or which—and, in English, by the word that, [1] which may be analyzed either as a relative pronoun or as a relativizer; see That as relativizer.
Notice that in the second example the relative pronoun that could be omitted. Stranded prepositions can also arise in passive voice constructions and other uses of passive past participial phrases , where the complement in a prepositional phrase can become zero in the same way that a verb's direct object would: it was looked at ; I will be ...
Examples [1 & 2] are pronouns and pro-forms. In [1], the pronoun it "stands in" for whatever was mentioned and is a good idea. In [2], the relative pronoun who stands in for "the people". Examples [3 & 4] are pronouns but not pro-forms. In [3], the interrogative pronoun who does not stand in for anything.
In English, pronouns mostly function as pro-forms, but there are pronouns that are not pro-forms and pro-forms that are not pronouns. [ 5 ] : 239 Pronouns can be pro-forms for non-noun phrases. For example, in I fixed the bike, which was quite a challenge , the relative pronoun which doesn't stand in for "the bike".