English Grammar

Relative Pronouns

Relative pronouns are words like who, which, that, what and as. They are often used to join two clauses.

Read the following pairs of sentences.

I saw a girl. She was beautiful.
He got a letter. He had been expecting it.
This is the bag. You had left it behind.

Each of these pairs can be combined into a single sentence.

I saw a girl who was beautiful.
He got a letter which he had been expecting.
This is the bag that you had left behind.

In sentence 2 the relative pronoun who stands for the ‘girl’: hence it is a pronoun. It also connects the two sentences ‘I saw a girl’ and ‘She was beautiful’. Hence it acts as a conjunction. In sentence 2, the relative pronoun which stands for the ‘letter’. It also connects the two sentences ‘He got the letter’ and ‘He had been expecting it’. The noun to which a relative pronoun relates or refers is called its antecedent. The nouns girl, letter and bag are the antecedents of who, which, and that respectively.