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ESL forum > Grammar and Linguistics > Relative clause and plural    

Relative clause and plural



marcella8161
Italy

Relative clause and plural
 
Dear colleagues,
the more I surf this website, the more I realise how little English I know...
I �d like to ask you something about two topics:
1 - RELATIVE CLAUSE
There are a lot of different tables about the relative pronouns to be used in the Defining and Non Defining relative clauses, according to object, subject, people, things and so on. The problem is that there are some differences, so I don �t know which table to follow, or if some are incomplete. 
Ex: Lucy is my best friend. I spoke to you about Lucy last week.
We are looking for the girl. Last night we met the girl.
According to the different table I �ve seen, there are so many possibilities that now I don �t understand what to do. Is there a reliable source to understand this better? I �ve surfed the web and the worksheet in this website as well. My confusion is increasing...
If there are different possibilities it �s ok, only I would like to know what is correct and acceptable.


2 - PLURAL
When you say: "More than one boy..." what shall you put after? Singular or plural?
I �ve thought like this:   More than one boy were present yesterday
In some places I �ve found plural is correct and in others that singular is correct. Can you help me, please? 

Thanks a lot!!!

10 Mar 2011      





Apodo
Australia

More than one boy was present yesterday.
 
More than two boys were present yesterday.
 
 
This is how I would write these:
 
Lucy is my best friend. I spoke to you about Lucy last week
 
Lucy, who I spoke to you about last week, is my best friend.
 
We are looking for the girl. Last night we met the girl.
 
We are looking for the girl who we met last night.
 
Can you give an example of the table which is confusing you-I�m not quite sure what the problem is.

10 Mar 2011     



marcella8161
Italy

Thanks. Yes, Here are 2 tables:

Defining

 

Person

Thing

Subject

who (or that)

that (or which)

Object

- (or that)

- (or that)







Non defining

 

Person

Thing

Subject

,who... ,

,which... ,

Object

,who (or whom) . . . ,

,which... ,








Defining

 

Person

Thing

Subject

who (that)

That (which)

Object

who (or whom)

That (which)







Non defining 

 

Person

Thing

Subject

who (or that)

that (or which)

Object

Who (or Whom)

That (Which)

10 Mar 2011