Latin Grammar Mini-Series | Lesson 17 - Relative Pronouns and Clauses

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There is one rule ─ one very important rule! ─ to remember in this lesson. 

(1) A relative pronoun agrees with its antecedent in number and gender but not case; it derives its case from its use in its own clause. OK, kiddies! Vacation's over. Hope you enjoyed the rest that you had with Chapters 14-16.

"Clause" refers to a dependent or subordinate thought or sentence which is embedded inside another thought or sentence. (nice…) When the clause is called subordinate or dependent, it means it can't stand alone grammatically. Therefore, if I said "When I'm in bed,…" ─ yeah, you kinda go like “Well, what?,” because it's not a full thought. “Although you tried,” …? While I think I know where you're going with that, just to be safe, you ought to try finishing the grammar … “as they say.” I think you get the point. The presence of subordinating conjunctions like "when, although, as" turn sentences like "I'm home," "You tried," "They say" into clauses which cannot stand alone. 

Moving on to the term "relative." So, this term is used for the type of clause we're studying in this chapter, refers to a certain sort of subordinate clause, one which begins with what grammarians call a “relative pronoun.” English has a number of relative pronouns, primarily "who" and "which." But also "what" and "that" can sometimes function as relative pronouns and, as we'll soon discover, in English even the absence of a relative pronoun can indicate the beginning of a relative clause... (double that “nice”…) A relative pronoun is called “relative” because it relates a subordinate thought to a noun outside the relative clause. To put it in more layman's terms (see what I did there?), the entire clause functions as a sort of large, complex adjective modifying that noun, which is called its antecedent, and just like an adjective, the whole relative clause describes or defines that noun.

Antecedents get their name from the fact that they tend to cede (“come”) ante ("before") the relative clause that modifies them. Before we take the next step and look at how relative pronouns and antecedents interact, and even how the Latin relative pronoun is formed, let's make certain that you understand the English side of the equation fully, that’s always my modus operandi. English uses its relative pronoun forms (who, which, what) both as relative pronouns and as interrogatives (question words). But while these forms are identical, their grammatical function couldn't be more different. 

Interrogative pronouns are used in independent thoughts such as "What are you doing?," where "what" introduces a question that's a full thought, versus "what you are doing" which is not a full thought. It needs an independent sentence to attach to, such as "It is wrong," creating a full thought: "What you're doing is wrong.” There, "what" is functioning as a relative pronoun. 

Therefore in English, it's important to ask yourself, whenever you run into "who, which, what," if that "w-" word is introducing a question, and thus part of the main sentence. 

If so, it's interrogative, not relative. This is mostly true of Latin as well, and you'll learn very quickly how to tell whether a "w-" word is interrogative or relative from context.