Relative Clauses

Relative clauses are a common type of subordinate clause. They form part of the postmodification of a noun phrase; i.e. they are not a clause element. Their role is to give extra information about the noun:

I have seen the film which won the Oscar.

Here the relative clause which won the Oscar is the postmodification of the noun phrase beginning the film . . . Overall this noun phrase represents the direct object of the main clause. We can also analyse the structure of the relative clause; in this case it is SVO, with which as the subject. Compared to premodification (see A3), postmodification with a relative clause allows quite complicated information to be given (though we could talk about the Oscar-winning film).