4.2.3.2. The person who I did it to was not the person who did it to me

I gave the sentence “The man who I told you about is at the door” as an example of a mini-sentence (“who I told you about”) nested inside another sentence (“The man... is at the door”). The clause who I told you about contributes to the description of the man. Commonly it is said that such a clause “modifies the noun”. In other words who I told you about modifies the noun man. Clauses that modify nouns are called relative clauses. There are other kinds of clauses that modify nouns, and some languages may use them in situations where English uses a relative clause. As with all of the particular notions I have been discussing in these suggestions, I am not really focusing on the grammar and how it works, but rather on the notions that are being expressed. In any language there will be some way to express the notions that are expressed by relative clauses in English. I will go ahead and use the term “relative clause” for any expression which functions like an English relative clause.

In my experience, relative clauses are one of the most important language devices for increasing my flexibility in speaking a language. Nouns are very general. An expression like “the man” can refer to any of billions of male adults. Yet every person is different, and when I talk about a man, I need a way to tell you which man I am talking about. That is where relative clauses come in. If I say “the man who lives directly in back of me”, I am able to refer to one very specific man. For the most part, people talk about very specific things, like the man who lives directly behind me.

It is possible that your LRP will already have been using relative clauses in order to make the communication more natural during your learning activities. For example, recall when I discussed learning to understand general statements by using a collection of objects which are bought at different shops. The LRP would say “We buy it at the meat shop,” and you would point to the meat. It might be more natural for her to say “Pick up something which we buy at the meat shop,” using the relative clause “which we buy at the meat shop.” Thus you may have had a lot of exposure to relative clauses by the time you get around to focusing on them in a language session. As in the case of questions, I want to help you to determine whether you have learned to comprehend the main types of relative clauses. If I mention a type of relative clause that you have not yet had exposure to, you can then plan to focus on it in a language session.

What I am about to say may seem a bit complicated. If you find it confusing, you can wait and come back to it when you think you need it. You should still be able to understand what I have to say here with regard to techniques.

There are three or four main types of relative clauses you will want to concern yourself with at this point. To classify a relative clause, first identify the noun that it is modifying. Consider the case of the duck which I shot. What is the noun which is being modified? It is the duck. Now ask yourself, what role is the duck understood to have in the relative clause? Note I say understood to have. The duck is not actually in the relative clause. The relative clause is simply which I shot. But the duck is understood to have a role in the relative clause. It is understood as the thing that got shot; that is, it is understood as the patient (or object) of the relative clause, even though it is not mentioned there. Because it is understood as the object, this relative clause is called an object relative clause. Now you make up a sentence in which the relative clause is understood as the subject of the relative clause.

DO NOT PROCEED WITHOUT MAKING UP A RELATIVE CLAUSE IN WHICH THE NOUN WHICH IS MODIFIED BY THE RELATIVE CLAUSE IS UNDERSTOOD AS THE SUBJECT OF THE RELATIVE CLAUSE.

How did you do? Here is an example: The man who shot the duck. The noun modified? Man. Look at the clause who shot the duck, and ask yourself what role the man has in that clause. The man is the one who does the shooting, that is, the agent, or subject. Thus the man who shot the duck is a subject relative clause. You might consider two types of subject relative clauses. The first type occurs when there is no object in the subject relative clause, as in the man who yawned (if you are interested, you can call this an intransitive subject relative clause). The second type occurs when there is an object in the subject relative clause, as in the man who shot the duck, where the duck is the object.

In addition to subject relative clauses and object relative clauses, you will want to be exposed to relative clauses such as the gun with which I shot it, the woman for whom I made it, the kids with whom I played, the house where I live. The main point here is that the nouns gun, woman, kids, and house are not understood as the subject in the clauses with which I shot it, for whom I made it, with whom I played and where I live, nor are those nouns understood as the objects in those clauses. Rather, they have other roles, such as being the instrument used, or the location, or whatever.

It will be helpful if you keep these four types of relative clauses in mind--object relative clauses, two types of subject relative clause, and relative clauses which are neither object relative clause nor subject relative clauses. The reason I recommend you keep them all in mind, is that different languages may handle the different types in different ways.

Now in case you were wondering, this discussion of relative clauses has been the most demanding thing I have bothered you with. If your background in linguistics is weak or lacking, you may need to think it through very carefully. It may turn out that relative clauses are simple and straightforward in the language you are learning. If not, what I have just said may help you to sort things out better.

Techniques: I hope you haven't lost sight of the fact that your main goal right now is to learn to understand sentences which employ the basic sentence patterns of the language. If relative clauses are simple and straightforward, they will be a snap to learn to understand. Even if they are somewhat complicated, it shouldn't be too hard to learn to understand them when you hear them.

For learning to understand relative clauses you can use TPR, object manipulation and picture description. A typical instruction for learning to understand relative clauses by TPR would be “Give three eggs to the woman who is seated”. If you have co-learners, especially, it may be possible for the LRP to describe any of them by means of a variety of relative clauses, using vocabulary you already know or are learning during that session. Pictures are especially helpful in covering the four different types of relative clauses. After you give the LRP a few examples in English, or whatever language you share with her, she can go through a hundred pictures using only subject relative clauses and go through the same pictures using only object relative clauses. She can use the same hundred for other relative clauses. For subject relative clauses she might say things like “Here is a man who is ploughing” or “Where is the man who is ploughing?” For object relative clauses she might say things like “Where is the ball which the boy is kicking?” For other types of relative clauses, sentences might focus on, say, locations: “Where is the tree which someone is standing under?”