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ESL forum >
Grammar and Linguistics > Help! Relative clauses!
Help! Relative clauses!
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Innovice Teacher
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Help! Relative clauses!
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First I just want to say thank you to all those who helped me yesterday on this website. Today I taught my students Relative Clauses and Pronouns. The lesson was ok in general, but I still feel that I need to learn more about this topic. I know that I �m a new teacher and that there is a lot i should learn.
I would be grateful to you if you help me understand the difference between these two examples:
1- The book whose author is now being shown in the news has become a bestseller.
2- The book, whose author is now being shown in the news, has become a bestseller.
I know that sentence 1 is called a defining relative clause and that the sentence 2 is called a non-defining clause, but what is the difference between them in meaning?
What do the commas add to the sentence? This is confusing for me. So please help me.
Thank you |
12 May 2009
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MsLisa
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The commas tell the reader which part of the sentence contains the important information. The way that you have used the commas in the second example is alled an appositive. My mother, a chicken farmer, is over there. In this sentence, the important information is not your mother �s occupation, but her location. In the first example that you have listed, you have used whose to add extra information that is pertinent. In the second, it is extra information that is non-defining, using appositives to add non-essential information. Other books call these essential noun clauses and non essential noun clauses, which I think is more cognitive. After all, grammar is a headache enough on its own!
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12 May 2009
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Carla Horne
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Hi,
The first sentence is saying that it is the author on the news who has a best-selling book. (There are many authors in the world, but it is necessary to understand that the speaker is referring to only the one on the news),
The second sentence is saying that the author on the news has a book that has become a bestseller (a very popular book). The focus is on the book, and the author being on the news is just extra information.
The commas are very important in communication. A relative clause placed inside of commas is not necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence. It is just extra information.
I hope this helps.
Carla
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12 May 2009
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Innovice Teacher
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Thank you both of you dear teachers. I just want to ask more questions about the same point for clarification.
So you mean that in a defining relative clause (also called essential noun clause), the focus is always on the detailed essential information that the relative clause add to the main clause and that good importance is always given to the noun, pronoun or expression in the relative clause and not to the noun, pronoun or expression in the main clause.
However, in a non-defining relative clause (also called non-essential noun clause), the focus this time is not on the relative clause which is between the two commas since it is just extra information whose absence would do no harm to the understanding of the sentence (main clause), so good importance should be always be given here to the noun, pronoun or expression in the main clause and not to the noun, pronoun or expression in the relative clause.
Well, this is what I understood from your explanation, so please correct me if i said something wrong.
I hope I didn �t get things wrongly because tomorrow is very near and I �ll have to complete the lesson with my dear students.
I still have to think about a simple way how to explain to them your statements through simple sentences. Sometimes it is more difficult to teach beginners and intermediate students than advanced ones. |
12 May 2009
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Innovice Teacher
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Dear Carla,
Thank you for that site, I �m going to read the lesson.
You didn �t tell me whether my previous answer is correct or not. |
12 May 2009
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Innovice Teacher
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Hello urpillay,
Thank you for the link. That �s so kind of you.
I have a question now. Maybe it is the last one. Maybe LOL!
So, now great teachers tell me if I �m right in the explanation of these two sentences in terms of grammar and meaning.
1- The man who was looking for you is over there.
1- The man, who was looking for you, is over there.
What I understood from the earlier posts is that:
In sentence 1, for example, at the level of grammar, the defining relative clause is essential to the understanding of the main clause and omitting it would change the meaning of the sentence, so here the focus is mainly on the information that the relative clause adds to the sentence since it defines the preceding noun rather than on the main clause itself.
Concerning meaning, the sentence tells us who is exactly over there because maybe there are many men in that place and the focus is on the man over there who was looking for you and not on any other man.
In sentence 2, however, at the level of grammar, the non-defining clause is not essential to the understanding of the main clause and excluding it wouldn �t affect the meaning of the sentence since it doesn �t define the preceding noun in the main clause, so here the focus is mainly on the noun in the main clause rather than the additional information of the relative clause.
Regarding meaning, I think the sentence shows us the place of the man without focusing on the information between commas because maybe the hearer knows that that man was looking for him/her and he only wants to know the place where he is, so even if you omit the information between commas, he may understand that it is the man who was looking for him/her.
But what if i give the students an exercise about relative pronouns, for example, to use a relative pronoun/adverb to join two simple sentences in one complex sentence and then some would come up with a defining relative clause while other students would produce a non-defining relative clause. I mean is there no rule for that? That´s a problem.
For example, if i give my students these two simple sentences:
the man is over there. He was looking for you.
So some students would produce a complex sentence as as in sentence 1 above while other students may come up with a complex sentence as in sentece 2 above which are different in terms of meaning. So that´s a problem, isn´t it?
Ooooh! This is long and tiring LOL! I �m not sure if i made it right, so please help. Any great teacher here who would tell me exactly if my explanation, esp at the level of meaning, is correct and if i missed anything important or mixed anything up.
Waiting for your useful comments great teachers. |
12 May 2009
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Apodo
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Commas used to mark a non-defining relative:
The scientist who lives next door to me has discovered a new plastic.
The scientist, who lives next door to me, has discovered a new plastic.
These two sentences show the importance of the comma (or commas) in distinguishing the two meanings. In the first sentence the relative is defining; the adjective clause it introduces cannot be dissociated from its antecedent.
In the second, the commas have made the adjective clause non-defining or parenthetic.
So, yes I think your explanation says the same as this. |
12 May 2009
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Innovice Teacher
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Apodo
Thank you for your comment, but I need a specific answer to my specific question(s).
If you read my comments above you would notice that I �ve already mentioned what you said especially at the level of grammar, but what I really need to understand is the difference in terms of meaning.
Please check my previous comment and my inquiry abou the the exercise i may give to students.
Thanx a lot
Waiting for your explanation |
12 May 2009
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serene
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Hi Innovice Teacher,
I think that in sentence one the relative clause tells us which man we are talking about. In sentence two we already know which man we are talking about and the relative clause only gives us some additional information about him. Therefore, if you just tell someone "The man is over there." , they won �t know which man you are referring to, so the natural answer to this would be "The man who was looking for you is over there." (defining)
I mean that whether a relative clause is defining or non defining depends on context.
I hope I �ve helped a bit.
Bye |
12 May 2009
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