Relative Clauses
Table of contents
Dependent Clauses
Dependent clauses (or subordinate clauses) are parts of sentences that contain their own internal logic (e.g., they have a conjugated verb with a subject), but they cannot stand on their own due to a conjunction or pronoun that begins the clause that makes the idea incomplete without the context of a main clause. Here’s an example:
- When the sun set, we ate dinner.
The dependent clause in this sentence, “when the sun set”, begins with a subordinating conjunction, “when”, and has its own internal logic: a conjugated verb “set” with the subject “the sun.” However, if the full sentence consisted simply of:
- When the sun sets.
we would be left wondering, what happened when the sun set? The idea is incomplete, and we need the context of the main clause, “we ate dinner”, to form a full sentence. The dependent clause answers a question posed by the main clause or some element of the main clause, like “when did it happen?” or “which noun are we talking about?”
This unit will discuss a specific kind of dependent clause: the relative clause functions adjectivally to give us more information about a noun, answering the question “which noun specifically are we discussing?”
Relative Clauses
A relative clause is a dependent clause that modifies a noun, much like an adjective. A dependent clause is usually introduced by a subordinating conjunction or a subordinating pronoun that can begin a clause that contains its own conjugated verb; in this case, a relative clause begins with a relative pronoun: quī, quae, quod - “who(m)”, “which”, or “that”. Note the following example in English:
- The book which is on the table is large.
The relative clause in this sentence begins with the relative pronoun “which” and continues with the remainder of the clause: the conjugated verb “is” and the prepositional phrase “on the table.” The relative clause serves to tell us more about a noun, in this case “the book,” and the relative clause helps us understand which book in particular we’re talking about: the book which is on the table, as opposed to the book which is on the shelf or the book that is blue. This noun gets replaced in the relative clause with the relative pronoun. This noun is termed an antecedent, which, as you will recall from the units on pronouns, will give the pronoun its gender and number; the case of the pronoun, however, comes from its use within its own clause. More on this below.
Relative Pronoun and Antecedents
The relative pronoun, like any other pronoun, can exist in any combination of gender, case, and number, since it needs to be able to replace any kind of noun. Its forms are irregular, so memorization of or quick reference to this paradigm chart is recommended:
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nom. Sg. | quī | quae | quod |
| Gen. Sg. | cuius | cuius | cuius |
| Dat. Sg. | cui | cui | cui |
| Acc. Sg. | quem | quam | quod |
| Abl. Sg. | quō | quā | quō |
| Nom. Pl. | quī | quae | quae |
| Gen. Pl. | quōrum | quārum | quōrum |
| Dat. Pl. | quibus | quibus | quibus |
| Acc. Pl. | quōs | quās | quae |
| Abl. Pl. | quibus | quibus | quibus |
Some items of note:
- the form quae appears in multiple places: feminine nominative singular, feminine nominative plural, neuter nominative plural, and neuter accusative plural.
- like other pronouns, the relative pronoun as the same form across all three genders in the genitive singular (cuius), dative singular (cui), dative plural (quibus), and ablative plural (quibus).
Again, the relative pronoun functions like any other pronoun in taking its gender and number from its antecedent. Its case, however, is determined by its function and use within the relative clause. For example, if the “who” is performing the action of the verb within the relative clause as the subject, then it should be in the nominative case. If it receives the action of an active verb within the relative clause, then it is a direct object and should be in the accusative case. And so on and so forth. Here’s another way to phrase it:
The relative pronoun takes its case from its place within its own space.
This means that, e.g., while an antecedent can be a nominative subject in the main clause, if the relative pronoun functions as a direct object within the relative clause, it has to be in the accusative case.
Finding the Antecedent
Let’s see how a relative clause works within the context of a Latin sentence by using the following example:
- nautae quōs puer vīdit ā nāvibus vēnērunt.
When we come across a relative pronoun (like quōs, masculine accusative plural, in this sentence), that serves as a signal that there is a relative clause present in the sentence. The first step in deciphering the sentence should always be to isolate the relative clause from the main clause. We have to understand what belongs to the relative clause and what belongs to the main clause so that we don’t, e.g., pull the main verb into the relative clause or attribute an adjective of the relative clause to a noun of the main clause.
In general, a relative clause:
- begins at the relative pronoun
- and ends at 1) the conjugated verb, 2) a punctuation mark like a comma, or 3) the end of the sense unit (e.g., a prepositional phrase or an adverb, sometimes a direct object or subject).
A good practice is to use marks like parentheses or square brackets to sequester the relative clause; that way, you can see at a glance what elements belong to each clause and figure out the logic of each clause before putting them together.
- nautae (quōs puer vīdit) ā nāvibus vēnērunt.
Once you’ve determined the boundaries of the relative clause, the best pratice is then to figure out the main clause first. Dependent clauses always add information to the main clause, and in order to determine the dependent clause’s relationship to the main clause, we have to understand the main clause first. In the sentence above, the main clause is: nautae … ā nāvibus vēnērunt, “The sailors came from the ships.”
The relative clause, then, adds more information to the main clause by modifying a noun. To figure out which noun is being modified by the relative clause, we have to look at the gender and number of the relative pronoun and find a noun in the main clause that matches in both aspects. Because quōs is masculine accusative plural, we need to find a masculine plural noun to serve as the antecedent of quōs; nautae is the only noun in the main clause that fits the bill. Note that the relative clause cannot possibly modify “the ships” (nāvibus), since that noun is feminine ablative plural. The mismatch in genders between quōs (masculine) and nāvibus (feminine) means that the relative clause does not tell us more about the ships.
Within the relative clause (quōs puer vīdit), note how the case of quōs (accusative) means that we have to consider uses of the accusative when fitting the “who(m)”, “which”, or “that” into our clause. The subordinate verb, vīdit, is 3rd person singular, with a nominative singular subject of puer; thus, the puer performs the action of vīdit upon quōs as a direct object. In the word order of a regular clause, this would sound something like “the boy saw whom”, but because this is a relative clause, we usually start with the relative pronoun: “whom the boy saw”. We can then fit this relative clause back into the larger sentence that contains it by placing the relative clause near the noun that it tells us more about:
- The sailors whom the boy saw came from the ships.
This act of matching the gender and number of the relative pronoun and its antecedent is important because the relative clause does not necessarily need to follow its antecedent immediately, the way that it must in English. Note the following example:
- equus ā puellā ex agrīs ductus est quae carmina scripsit.
Our relative clause comes at the end of the sentence: quae carmina scripsit. However, immediately preceding it is the verb of the main clause: ductus est. So, we need to use the gender and number of the relative pronoun quae to figure out which noun the relative clause modifies.
As mentioned above, quae can be multiple things: feminine singular, feminine plural, or neuter plural. There are three nouns in the main clause: equus, puellā, and agrīs. Of these three, we can immediately rule out equus (masculine singular) and agrīs (masculine plural), since none of the possible gender-number combinations for quae involves the masculine. This leaves us with puellā, feminine singular, as the only possible antecedent of quae; this also helps us to figure out that quae must be feminine singular and, thus, nominative case.
Hence, in quae carmina scripsit, quae is the subject of scripsit while carmina is an accusative direct object: “who wrote the songs”. Then, when we slot this dependent clause back into the larger sentence that contains it, we come up with “The horse was led out of the fields by the girl who wrote the songs.”
To make the relationship between the relative clause and its antecedent clear in translation, we need to rearrange the parts of the Latin sentence to conform to English word order, which places the relative clause after its antecedent. Hence, “The horse was led out of the fields by the girl who wrote the songs.” Note that any other arrangement of the translation would indicate something different and not render the Latin faithfully. For example, “The horse was led by the girl out of the fields who wrote the songs” implies because of word order that it’s the fields that wrote the poems (which is wrong).