Spanish: An Essential Grammar

In contrast, a Spanish relative pronoun can neverbe omitted. Therefore,

the relative pronoun que, meaning ‘that’, cannot be omitted from the

following sentence: El hombre quevimos en la playa está aquí.

Spanish relative clauses cannot end in a preposition

It should also be noted that while in English a preposition can be ‘stranded’

at the end of the relative clause, in Spanish it must be placed immediately

beforethe associated relative pronoun:

Allí está el hombre dequien hablábamos.

There’s the man (who) we were talking about.

Restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses

A relative clause may be restrictive or non-restrictive:

Los niños que estaban cansados tuvieron que ir a la cama.

(restrictive)

The children who were tired had to go to bed. (restrictive)

Los niños, que estaban cansados, tuvieron que ir a la cama.

(non-restrictive)

The children, who were tired, had to go to bed. (non-restrictive)

In the first sentence, the relative clause que estaban cansadosdefines a sub-

group within the group of children, namely those who were tired. It is only

these children who had to go to bed. So the restrictive clause restricts what

is denoted by the antecedent: not just children but children who were tired.

In the second sentence the relative clause que estaban cansadosdoes not

define a sub-group among the children. This can be seen from the fact that

the overall sentence implies that allthe children were tired and allthe chil-

dren had to go to bed. So a non-restrictive clause does not restrict its

antecedent.

Non-restrictive clauses are sometimes placed in the sentence between

commas, and in speech set apart by pauses.

English ‘that’ can only be used in restrictive relative clauses while ‘who’ and

‘which’, for example, can be used both restrictively and non-restrictively.

25.2

25.1.2

1111

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1011

1

12111

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

20111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

30111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

40

41111

25

Relative
clauses

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