Skip to main content

Relative Pronouns in Non-defining Clauses

OWL logo

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.



Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.


Summary:

This handout provides detailed rules and examples for the usage of relative pronouns (that, who, whom, whose, which, where, when, and why).

Non-defining relative clauses (also known as non-restrictive, or parenthetical, clauses) provide some additional information that is not essential and may be omitted without affecting the contents of the sentence. All relative pronouns EXCEPT that can be used in non-defining clauses; however, the pronouns MAY NOT be omitted. Non-defining clauses ARE separated by commas.

The table below sums up the use of relative pronouns in non-defining clauses:

Function in
the sentence
Reference to
People Things / concepts Place Time Reason
Subject who which
Object who, whom which where when why
Possessive whose whose, of which
  1. Relative pronoun used as a subject:

    The writer, who lives in this luxurious mansion, has just published his second novel.

  2. Relative pronoun used as an object:

    The house at the end of the street, which my grandfather built, needs renovating.

  3. Relative pronoun used as a possessive:

    William Kellogg, whose name has become a famous breakfast foods brand-name, had some weird ideas about raising children.

Some special uses of relative pronouns in non-defining clauses

  1. which
    If you are referring to the previous clause as a whole, use which :

    My friend eventually decided to get divorced, which upset me a lot.

  2. of whom, of which
    Use of whom for persons and of which for things or concepts after numbers and words such as most, many, some, both, none:

    I saw a lot of new people at the party, some of whom seemed familiar.
    He was always coming up with new ideas, most of which were absolutely impracticable.