1 The sentence
1.7 The complex sentence:'whose'; defining/non-defining clauses
1.7A
Study:
l**lWrite: Join these sentences using whose.1 He is the customer. I lost his address.
2 She is the novelist. Her book won first prize
3 They are the children. Their team won the match
4 You are the expert. We want your advice
5 I'm the witness. My evidence led to his arrest. .......'..:.*..;.*
6 She's the woman. The film was made in her house1.7B Defining and non-defining clauses [> LEG I .26, I .29,1.31 -32,1.34-37]
Study:
ШЕ'Whose' + noun in relative clauses [> LEG 1.32,1.37]
1 We use whose in place of possessive adjectives (my, your, his, etc.) to refer to people.
Whose does not change when it refers to masculine, feminine, singular or plural:
He's the man/She's the woman whose car was stolen. (Not *whose his car was stolen")
They're the people whose cars were stolen. (Not *whose their cars were stolen*)2 We sometimes use whose in place of its to refer to things and animals:
That's the house whose windows were broken. (= the windows of which)3 We can also use whose with prepositions:
He's the man from whose house the pictures were stolen, (formal)
He's the man whose house the pictures were stolen from.1 When we write relative clauses with who, which or whose, we have to decide whether to use
commas 'round the clauses' or not.2 In sentences like:
I've never met anyone who can type as fast as you can.
The magazine which arrived this morning is five days late.
the relative clauses tell us which person or thing we mean. They give us essential information
which we cannot omit. We call them defining clauses because they 'define' the person or thing
they refer to. We never use commas in such sentences.
We never use commas with that in relative clauses:
I've just had a phone call from the people (that) we met during our holidays.
The wallet (that) you lost has been found.3 In sentences like:
Our new secretary, who can type faster than anyone I have ever met, has completely
reorganized our office.
Time Magazine, which is available in every country in the world, is published every week.
the relative clauses add 'extra information'. If we take them out of the sentences, we won't
seriously change the meaning. We call these non-defining clauses (they do not 'define') and
we use commas before and after them.4 Sometimes we have to decide when the information is 'essential' or 'extra' and we may or may
not use commas. We must decide this for ourselves:
He asked lots of questions,(,) which were none of his business(,) and annoyed everybody.