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TENSE TUESDAY: PREPOSITIONS IN RELATIVE CLAUSES

24 / 11 / 2015

TENSE TUESDAY: PREPOSITIONS IN RELATIVE CLAUSES: meaning and examples

Welcome to Tense Tuesday, everyone! Are you ready for a little grammar?

Today we are looking at PREPOSITIONS IN RELATIVE CLAUSES. Relative Clauses begin with a relative pronoun (for example, the words THAT, WHICH or WHO) and give us more information about the noun in a sentence

Example 1: Jim is the guy who sold me the tickets to the concert

Example 2: This is the building that we lived in when I was a child

Example 3: This is the city which the movie was based on.

In Example 3, the sentence ends with a preposition. In spoken English, this is OK, but in very formal English it is better not to end a sentence with a preposition, if possible. Instead, we can change the sentence to something like this: 

Example 4 (formal): This is the book on which the movie was based. 

Let's look at another. 

Example 5
: This is the material which the dress is made from

Example 6 (formal): This is the material from which the dress is made. 

There is one important thing to remember: WHOM is the relative clause that represents a noun Object of a sentence. Consider example 7 below. 

Example 7: She is the person whom the dress was made for.

In this case, PERSON (= SHE) is the object of the verb MAKE ("the dress was made for her"). However, WHO is often used instead of WHOM, especially in conversation.

Example 8: She is the person who the dress was made for.

But remember that if we move the preposition directly before the relative clause (preposition/relative pronoun switch), then we must use WHOM.

Example 9: She is the person for whom the dress was made. 

That's all for today! You are, as always, the readers for whom these Daily Vitamin posts are written. I hope you enjoy them.