English Relative Words

The English relative words are words in English used to mark a clause, noun phrase or preposition phrase as relative. The central relative words in English include ''who'', ''whom'', ''whose'', ''which'', ''why'', and ''while'', as shown in the following examples, each of which has the relative clause in bold:

* ''We should celebrate the things which we hold dear.''
* ''I've been studying hard, which explains my good grades.''
* ''I finally met Jordan, who had been away.''
* ''That's the reason why it works.''

Most also belong to the set of English interrogative words but function differently as relative words.

The subordinator ''that'' is widely regarded as a relative word, though one with different properties from the others.

Semantics

Semantically speaking, relative words typically refer to some antecedent in the containing phrase or clause. For example, ''who'' within ''the teacher of mine who likes apples'' does not question the identity of a person, but rather refers to "the teacher of mine", which in turn denotes some particular person.

Individual words

* ''Who'' (with ''whom'') primarily refers to persons, although it can also refer to other animate beings. ''Whose'', however, may also refer to non-persons, as in ''a book whose cover is missing''.
* ''Which'' is semantically the most flexible, taking a wide range of antecedents, including propositions, as in ''I've skipped a lot of classes, which is why I flunked''. A clear exception is reference to persons, usually ungrammatical as in ''*They're the people which I know''. This is not absolute, though, as shown by the example ''I told her Lee was a friend, which he was''. Arguably, this use refers to the person's position or the relation, rather than to the person himself.
* ''Where'' refers primarily to locations, but locations broadly conceived, including locations in time (e.g., ''a time where we have to take that a step forward'') and situations (e.g., ''a situation where we'll need to rethink things'').
* ''When'' refers primarily to times and situations.
* ''While'' refers to a period of time.
* ''Whence'' (formal, and somewhat archaic) refers to a place (broadly conceived) and in such sentences as ''She returned to the house whence she had come'' has a "from" meaning. Yet examples such as ''She returned to the house from whence she had come'' are common. ''Whither'' (distinctly archaic) is similar but with a "to" meaning; the contrast with ''whence'' is not straightforward in that *''to whither'' is ungrammatical.
* ''Why'' refers primarily to reasons.
* As a fused relative, and in some nonstandard English dialects more widely, ''what'' is general purpose (other than for persons), and ''how'' refers to method.
* More or less archaic and formal compounds of ''where'' and a preposition:
**''Whereafter'' means "after which" (e.g., ''At the account anniversary, card purchases will revert to 0.5 per cent cashback, until total card spending reaches £15,000 – whereafter 1 per cent cashback will be earned again'').
**''Whereat'' means "at which" (e.g., ''A Director, notwithstanding his interest, may be counted in the quorum present at any meeting of the Directors whereat he or any other Director is appointed to hold any such office or place of profit under the Company'').
**''Whereby'' means "by which" or "as a result of which" (e.g., ''This is a new process whereby a work coach will decide what further work search conditions or employment pathways would best support a claimant into work'').
**''Wherefrom'' means "from which" (e.g., ''You could always count on her to jump up, dance, clap, cry, and uncork the mind-hydrants wherefrom her praise gushed'').
**''Wherein'' means "in which" (e.g., ''MIT is a phenomenon wherein an insulator becomes capable of conducting electricity when subjected to external factors like changes in the concentration or temperature of an ambient gas'').
**''Whereof'' means "of which" (e.g., ''The results whereof tell a story of "some win some loss"'').
**''Whereon'' means "on which" (e.g., ''And yet today the dead earth is revived by sunbeams whereon she hangs her cloak'').
**''Whereto'' means "to which" (e.g., ''The initiation of contempt proceedings''  . .''was filed''  . .''against Union of India and others, pursuant whereto, 45 days' time was given to contemnor to publish the already approved Byelaws of Cantonment Board, Jammu'')
**''Whereupon'' means "upon which" or "immediately after which" (e.g., ''A fine home-town debut from the seamer Brydon Carse denied New Zealand any momentum despite a misleadingly run-laden first over from Finn Allen, whereupon a brace of forceful knocks from Dawid Malan and the inevitable Harry Brook allowed Jos Buttler to sit back in the dressing-room with his feet up  . ./strong>'')
**''Wherewith'' means "with which" (e.g., ''The key to real social change, they wrote, was "nothing less than vesting in the citizenry the means and the effective power wherewith to criticize, to shape and even to challenge the actions or proposed actions of officials"'')

All of the words may have singular or plural antecedents. For example, ''the customer who was cheated''/''the customers who were cheated''.

''That'' differs from the other relative words in that, like other subordinators, it lacks semantic content, referring or otherwise.

Lexical categories and syntactic functions

Each relative word also has a syntactic function in a phrase or clause. For example, in ''the person who arrived'', ''who'' functions as the subject of the relative clause. Different words have different functions depending on their lexical category and form. For example, while a plain pronoun like ''who'' may typically function as a subject or object, its genitive form functions only as a determiner (e.g., ''the person'' 'whose keys''''I found'').

Syntax

A relative word occurs within a relative phrase, which appears in clause-initial position. A simple relative phrase consists of a relative word by itself (''where'' within ''the restaurant where we dined''; ''who'' within ''the man who you introduced me to''). A complex relative phrase also has other material; it is exemplified by ''to whom'' within ''the man to whom you introduced me'', ''from under which'' within ''the rock from under which it had crawled'', and ''whose car'' within ''the man whose car you borrowed''.

Individual words in relative clauses

* ''Who'' (with its other forms ''whom'' and ''whose'') is a pronoun. ''Whose'' is the genitive form of ''who''; ''whom'' is an accusative form generally limited to careful or formal writing or speech – and thus still commoner with preposition fronting (''the employee to whom''/^?''who it was addressed''; compare the informal ''the employee who''/^%''whom it was addressed to'', with preposition stranding) – and ''who'' is the nominative or (other than formally) the plain form. (''Whom'' is also found as a hypercorrected nominative.) It has been claimed that ''whose'' cannot form a simple relative phrase, but ''The Oxford English Dictionary'' disagrees, citing, for example, ''Everything depends on the person whose this administration is''.
* ''Which'' is usually a pronoun. It is a determiner in cases like ''We pause for three weeks, after which time, we will restart.''
* ''Where'', ''when'', and ''while'' are prepositions.
* ''Why'' is an adverb.
* ''That'' (often mistakenly called a relative pronoun) is a subordinator. In most contexts, it is omissible; thus ''I've said all the things ''(''that'') ''I want to say''; ''She's the one ''(''that'')'' you met last week''; ''That's the reason ''(''that'')'' it works''. But it is not omissible in Standard English when the relativized element is the subject of the relative clause (*''The speech that enraged them was racist''), when the subject of the relative clause does not immediately follow ''that'' (*''The book that during the flight I'd read was most absorbing''), or for a supplementary relative (where ''wh''-relatives are anyway far commoner).
* In some nonstandard dialects, ''what'' (a pronoun) and ''how'' (an adverb) are used for relative clauses (e.g., ^!''That's the thing what we've been missing'', ^!''That's the way how to do it'').
* ''Whereupon'' and the other ''where''-plus-preposition compounds are themselves prepositions.

Fused relatives

A fused construction is one in which a word or phrase fuses has two functions at once. A simple type of fused construction (not a relative) is exemplified by ''any'' within ''I didn't notice any'': Although a noun phrase (such as ''any food'') is normally headed by a noun, and although ''any'' is normally (as in ''any food'') a dependent, within ''I didn't notice any'' it heads a noun phrase and thus functions as a fused dependent-head.

Similarly, a fused relative is a noun phrase or preposition phrase (not a clause, but containing one) that is headed by a relative phrase (most commonly by a simple relative phrase, and thus by a relative word alone), and that lacks an antecedent. For example, the fused relative construction ''who you want'' within ''Believe who you want'' contains the relative phrase ''who''. This has functions within both the NP that contains the relative clause and within the relative clause itself: functions that are fused.

The fused relative is also called a free relative, free relative clause, nominal relative clause, and independent relative clause.

Fused relatives with relative words without ''-ever''

A fused relative may be headed by a non-compound word, such as ''what'', by a ''where''+preposition compound, or by a compound with ''-ever''. The three kinds are considered in turn.

Individual non-compound words in fused relatives

* ''Who'', as in ''You can believe who you want''. But this is archaic with ''who'' as the subject in the relative clause: ''Who steals my purse steals trash'' was used by Shakespeare, and survives in the expression ''Can I help who's next?'' but ''*You can believe who told you'' is not used today.
* ''Whom'', as in ''You can believe whom you want''.
* ''Whose'', as in ''You can believe whose version you want''.
* ''Which'', as in ''You can believe which version you want''. Like ''who'', this is not used as the subject in the relative clause: *''Use which is handy.''
* ''When'', as in ''We arrived when it opened''.
* ''Where'', as in ''My phone wasn't where I'd left it''.
* ''While'', as in ''We arrived while the band was playing''.
* ''Whence'' (rather archaic), as in ''He returned whence he had come''.
* ''Whither'' (distinctly archaic), as in ''He goes whither he wants''.
* ''Why'', as in ''Why I resigned was because of the chairman's intransigence''. Use in fused relatives of ''why'' seems to be limited to pseudo-clefts.
* ''What'', as in ''They ate what was offered''. Examples with ''what'' as a determiner, such as ''They ate what food was offered'' and ''They considered what options were open to them'', imply a small quantity or number.
* ''How'', as in ''You can dress how you like''.

Individual ''where''+preposition words in fused relatives

*''Whereof'' is widely used, particularly with the verb ''speak'' (''The mayor, 35, knows whereof she speaks''; perhaps best known from the final proposition within '' Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' in its first English translation: ''Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent'').

Fused relatives with ''-ever'' relative words

Individual ''-ever'' words in fused relatives

* ''Whoever'', as in ''I cursed whoever had taken it''.
* ''Whomever'', as in ''I borrow from whomever I can'' (although this would be a less likely alternative to ''I borrow from whoever I can'').
* ''Whoever's'', ''whosever'', as in ''The gang will steal whoever's/whosever car they can''.
* ''Whichever'', as in ''Buy whichever you like''; ''Buy whichever vase/vases you like''.
* ''Whenever'', as in ''We go whenever we can''.
* ''Wherever'', as in ''There were ants wherever we looked''.
* ''Whatever'', as in ''Buy whatever you like''; ''Buy whatever vase/furniture you like''.
* ''However'', as in ''However it happened, fix it''; ''However unfair it seems, fix it''.

''-Soever'' and ''-so'' relative words

As relative words, forms ending ''-soever'' and ''-so'' are old-fashioned variants of the ''-ever'' forms. There are ''whoso''(''ever''), ''whomso''(''ever''), ''whichsoever'', ''whensoever'' and ''whatso''(''ever''); and the archaisms ''whencesoever'' and ''whithersoever'' are still occasionally found.

Etymology

Ultimately, the English interrogative words (those beginning with '' wh'' in addition to the word ''how''), derive from the Proto-Indo-European root ''k^wo-'' or ''k^wi'', the former of which was reflected in Proto-Germanic as ''χ^wa-'' or ''kh^wa-'', due to Grimm's law.

These underwent further sound changes and spelling changes, notably ''wh''-cluster reductions, resulting in the initial sound being either (in most dialects) or (''how, who'') and the initial spelling being either or (''how''). This was the result of two sound changes – > before (''how, who'') and > otherwise – and the spelling change from to in Middle English. The unusual pronunciation versus spelling of ''who'' is because the vowel was formerly , and thus it did not undergo the sound change in Old English, but in Middle English (following spelling change) the vowel changed to and it followed the same sound change as ''how'' before it, but with the Middle English spelling unchanged.

In ''how'' (Old English ''hū'', from Proto-Germanic ''χ^wō''), the ''w'' merged into the lave of the word, as it did in Old Frisian ''hū, hō'' (Dutch ''hoe'' "how"), but it can still be seen in Old Saxon ''hwō'', Old High German ''hwuo'' (German ''wie'' "how"). In English, the gradual change of voiceless stops into voiceless fricatives (phase 1 of Grimm's law) during the development of Germanic languages is responsible for "wh-" of interrogatives. Although some varieties of American English and various Scottish dialects still preserve the original sound (i.e. rather than ), most have only the .

The words ''who'', ''whom'', ''whose'', ''what'' and ''why'', can all be considered to come from a single Old English word ''hwā'', reflecting its masculine and feminine nominative (''hwā''), dative (''hwām''), genitive (''hwæs''), neuter nominative and accusative (''hwæt''), and instrumental (masculine and neuter singular) (''hwȳ'', later ''hwī'') respectively. Other interrogative words, such as ''which'', ''how'', ''where'', ''whence'', or ''whither'', derive either from compounds (''which'' coming from a compound of ''hwā'' hat, whoand ''līc'' ike, or other words from the same root (''how'' deriving from ''hū'').

Phonology

Pronunciation of initial digraphs

The pronunciation of English relative words starting with the ⟨wh⟩ digraph involves a phonetic element historically pronounced as and now variously realized as or / ʍ/. Speakers with the ''whine''-''wine'' merger generally use , resulting in words like ''which'', and ''why'' being pronounced with an initial sound, homophonous with ''witch'', and ''wye''. The pronunciation is preserved in conservative speech in the Southern United States, in certain Scottish English varieties, and elsewhere. However, the merged pronunciation has been identified as having a continuous lineage in everyday spoken Southern English from Old English to the present. Three factors have been highlighted in enabling this phonetic evolution: spelling, word frequency, and possibly a shift in the sociolinguistic status of the northern pronunciation in some circles in the south during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The initial ⟨th⟩ in ''that'' represents a voiced dental fricative , phonologically distinguishing it from other relative words.

Vowel sounds

Outside of fused relatives, relative words have unstressed pronunciation. The vowel sounds in English relative words vary, with some notable features:

# Diphthongs and monophthongs: Words like ''who'' and ''whose'' contain a monophthong , while others like ''why'' incorporate a diphthong .
# Schwa and reduction: The vowels in some relative words like ''which'' can reduce to a schwa, . As a relative word, the subordinator ''that'' has only the unstressed pronunciation .

Intonational phrasing

Supplementary relative clauses regularly form a separate prosodic unit, with a pause before the relative phrase, while integrated relatives do not.

Relative vs interrogative and other words

There is significant overlap between the English relative words and the English interrogative words, but the relative words ''that'' and ''while'' are not interrogative words, the interrogative words ''whether'' and ''if'' are not relative words, and, in Standard English, ''what'' and ''how'' are mostly excluded from the relative words. Most or all of the interrogative words that are now more or less archaic are also relative words.

The denotation of ''whose'' as an interrogative word is limited to persons, but the relative ''whose'' may denote non-persons, as in ''a book whose cover is missing''.

Fused relatives are easily confused with open interrogatives, and even a careful analysis may conclude that, if taken out of context, a particular sentence can have either of two interpretations. An example in '' The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' illustrating this ambiguity is ''What she wrote is completely unclear''. If we know what she wrote and are saying that it is hard to understand, then ''what she wrote'' is a fused relative; if on the other hand we are saying that the extent of her authorship is unknown, then ''what she wrote'' is an open interrogative content clause.

The preposition ''while'' also has other, relative-irrelevant uses: ''While she showered, I slept'' (time), ''While the maths exam was tough, the English exam was easy'' (contrast), ''While you're free to complain, doing so won't get you anywhere'' (concession).

As a relative word, the subordinator ''that'' has only the unstressed pronunciation . It is also used more generally with subordinate clauses (''I know that he's lying'') and is usually unstressed, but in some contexts necessarily stressed (''That he's lying is obvious''). The stressed ''that'' that has the plural form ''those'' (''I'll take that'') is a determiner.

The use in fused relatives of the ''-ever'' form should not be confused with its other, non-relative uses:

*Interrogative words modified by ''ever'', as in ''What ever possessed you to do that?''
* NPI ''whatever'', which can be a postnominal intensifier – as can ''whatsoever'', which in this use is not archaic (''I was left with no money whatever/whatsoever'').
*''However'' as an adverb of comparison.
*"Free choice ''-ever''", an interrogative word in an "exhaustive conditional" construction (one whose protasis encompasses all possibilities), such as ''Wherever he went, Bhutan thrilled him''.
*^%''Whereabout'' seems only to be used as a noun, perhaps as a singular form of ''whereabouts'' (meaning "place") understood as a plural.
*''Whereas'' has a meaning close to that of ''although''.
*''Wherefore'' is an (archaic) interrogative word (meaning "why").
*Some of the ''where''+preposition relative words listed above may also appear as more or less archaic interrogative words.

Notes

References

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Syntax
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Semantics