Означальні підрядні речення: who, which, that

When you use it

A relative clause identifies which person or thing you mean, or says something more about it, without starting a new sentence. Instead of the woman is a doctor; she lives next door, you say the woman who lives next door is a doctor. The clause begins with a relative pronoun (who, which, that) and stands directly after the noun it describes. This lesson covers defining relative clauses, the kind that picks out one person or thing from all the others.

How it is formed

Pronoun	Refers to	Example
who	people	the woman who lives next door
which	things, animals	the book which I lost
that	people, things, animals	the man that fixed our car / the film that we watched

That is a little more informal and is very common in speech. In writing, who for people and which for things is the neutral choice. After words like everything, something, all and after superlatives, that is the usual pronoun: everything that you need, the best film that I have seen.

The relative pronoun does a job inside its clause. It can be the subject or the object.

Role	Sentence	Note
subject	the man who called you	who = he called you
object	the man who you called	who = you called him; can be left out

When the pronoun is the object of the clause, it can be dropped: the book I lost, the man you called. When it is the subject, it must stay: the man who called you.

The relative pronoun replaces the noun; it does not repeat it. Inside the clause there is no second subject or object referring to the same person or thing: the book which I lost, not the book which I lost it.

Ukrainian який and Russian который behave like a single all-purpose relative pronoun that agrees with the noun in gender and number. English has no agreement, but it splits by the kind of noun: who for people, which for things, that for either. In English a defining relative clause has no comma; the comma is not a matter of style but of meaning, and it is covered in the lesson on defining and non-defining relative clauses.

Examples

• The woman who lives next door is a doctor.
• This is the book which I told you about.
• Tom is the man that fixed our car last week.
• I did not like the film that we watched last night.
• Anna has a friend who speaks four languages.
• Where is the phone which was on the table?
• The people who work here are very friendly.
• The dog that bit him belongs to the neighbours.

Common mistakes

• ✗ The man which lives next door is a doctor.
  ✓ The man who lives next door is a doctor. / The man that lives next door is a doctor.
  Який and который do not distinguish people from things, so which is a common overgeneralisation. For a person, use who or that.
• ✗ The book which I read it yesterday was boring.
  ✓ The book which I read yesterday was boring.
  Which already stands for the book inside the clause. Adding it repeats the object and makes the sentence ungrammatical.
• ✗ The girl who she sits next to me is from Kharkiv.
  ✓ The girl who sits next to me is from Kharkiv.
  The same logic applies to subjects. Who is the subject of sits; a second subject she has no place.
• ✗ I know the man, who works there.
  ✓ I know the man who works there.
  In Ukrainian and Russian a comma before який / который is obligatory. In English a comma before a relative clause changes the meaning: it turns identifying information into an extra remark. A defining clause has no comma.
• ✗ The book is on the table which I bought yesterday.
  ✓ The book which I bought yesterday is on the table.
  The relative clause must follow the noun it describes. In the wrong version, the reader thinks you bought the table. Slavic word order is more flexible, so this needs care in English.

Try it