Relative Determiners
Relative determiners modify nouns within a relative clause. Follow the article to learn more about them.
What Are Relative Determiners?
Relative determiners are used before nouns to connect the relative clause to an independent clause. They introduce the nominal relative clause.
Relative Determiners: Uses
Relative determiners connect a dependent clause to the main clause. Relative determiners and the nominal relative clause can act as the object or the subject of the independent/main clause.
Relative Determiners: Placement
Relative determiners introduce a nominal relative clause and are always followed by a noun or noun phrase.
Here is the list of English relative determiners with examples:
- What/Whatever
'What book to buy' is a subject for 'doesn't matter.' 'What' is used before 'book.'
- Which/Whichever
I don't know
'Which book you bought' is an object for 'know'. 'Which' is used before a noun.
- Possessive Relative Determiner 'Whose'
Relative determiner 'whose' shows possession.
I don't know
'Whose' heads the nominal relative clause and serves as the object.
Tip!
If 'whose', 'what', and 'which' are not followed by a noun, they are no longer determiners. Rather, they are interrogative pronouns. In the following examples, they are relative pronouns:
Review
Relative determiners are used to connect a dependant clause to the main clause. They are used:
- as the head of a nominal relative clause
- always followed by a noun/noun phrase
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Interrogative Determiners
There are three interrogative determiners in English: what, which, and whose. In this lesson, we will go through each one of them.
Demonstrative Determiners
Demonstrative determiners in English are this, these, that and those. They are used to identify the person or thing that is being referred to.
Indefinite Determiners
Indefinite determiners are determiners that express quantity or the indefinite ideas of quality. They agree in number and gender with the noun they modify.
Articles
Articles are used as modifiers for nouns. However, some nouns do not need to be modified. In this lesson, we will learn about them.
