EXAMPLES of RELATIVE pronouns

In Spanish there are different word categories and one of them is made up of pronouns. According to him Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (DRAE), a pronoun is all that "class of words whose elements act as the noun or of the noun phrase and that are used to refer to people, animals or things without name them ".

In this lesson from a TEACHER we will study the examples of relative pronouns, as well as understanding what a relative pronoun is and which ones exist in the Spanish language. We started!

Before discovering the examples of relative pronouns it is important that we understand what pronouns are. As we have said in the introduction, the pronoun is a grammatical category that performs the same functions as a name within the sentence; this is why it is called pronoun ("instead of the name"). However, pronouns differ from nouns by the following characteristics:

Faced with names that refer to reality directly, pronouns always name it indirectly or deictically; that is, the element to which the pronoun refers has been previously stated in the speech.

For this reason, pronouns are closely linked to the context immediate enunciative; that is, with the practical aspect of language, with the language in use, since these refer to things that are part of the discourse that at that moment it is being emitted, so they cannot be understood without attending to the characteristics of each enunciation model.

Finally, another of the characteristics that define pronouns is that they belong to closed categories, this means that new pronouns cannot be created.

Within the varied typology of pronouns in Spanish, in this section we are going to focus on the Relative Pronouns which are those whose main function is to join two clauses or propositions.

Thus, we can say that the role of relative pronouns is analog in nature, since it refers to a syntactic element that has previously appeared in speech. In this way, the relative pronouns they perform two functions:

• On the one hand, they are subordination particles that make a sentence work as an adjacency to a noun phrase.
• And on the other hand, they are words that are used instead of names, so they adopt their functions.

In this video of a PROFESSOR you will discover the Relative Pronouns in a deeper way.

Image: SlidePlayer

For you to better understand this concept, below we are going to give you different examples of relative pronouns that will help you better understand this linguistic unit. Below we will give you a list with these pronouns and we will attach some sentences that will serve as an example:

Relative pronoun QUE

The word WHAT It is, without a doubt, one of the most used relative pronouns in Spanish, since it can be used for both people and things: The book that I left my friend; The man who lives in the third is very nice.

THE WHAT, WHAT, WHAT, WHAT

They are used to refer to something already named previously and thus avoid the repetition of said term: Can I have a red pen? The one I have is blue, sorry; Spanish food is the one I like the most of all.

We can also find WHAT, which is used to refer to more abstract issues, such as ideas or thoughts: What we have to do is stop complaining so much; What I like the most about you is your good humor (We can substitute this pronoun for something like "the thing that" or "the idea that").

Relative pronouns WHO, WHO

Employees only to name people. Among the examples of relative pronouns we find: My best friend, who lives in Seville, is very handsome; The students, who attended the exam, said it was very difficult. WHO with subject function may also appear in popular phrases such as Whoever went to Seville, lost his chair.

WHICH, WHICH, WHICH, WHICH

With a marked formal character and more typical of written language: These examples, which are arranged alphabetically, help to better understand the lesson; Traffic signs, which must be respected, are all over the city.

CUYO, CUYOS, CUYA, CUYAS

Possessive pronoun whose use is being limited only to written and more formal texts. Being possessive, it must match possession proper, as in the following examples: The girl, whose mother came to pick her up at school, she was ill and she cried a lot; The boss, whose dog has escaped, he is my neighbor.

Relative pronoun WHERE

Relative pronoun of place, replaceable by "in which" or "in which". Here are more examples of relative pronouns: The land where I was born will always be with me; The place where we have met is in the center of the city.

Now that you have been able to know several examples of relative pronouns, we are going to finish this lesson with exercises with solutions that will allow you put into practice everything learned previously. The solutions are posted in the next section, but we recommend that you fill in the results first and then check your answers.

Here are the relative pronoun exercises that we propose:

Statement: Indicate which is the relative pronoun that appears in the following sentences.

1. I didn't like the school I went to last year.
2. What I don't like about this site is that it has a musty smell
3. The car that my father has is very old
4. Friends whose parents are religious have not wanted to participate in the party
5. The girl who lives with your sister is very pretty

Once you have answered the previous exercise you can check the answers and see if you have really understood the lesson on relative pronouns in Spanish. Here you have them:

1. I didn't like the school I went to last year. - WHERE
2. What I don't like about this site is that it has a musty smell - WHAT
3. The car that my father has is very old - WHAT
4. Friends whose parents are religious have not wanted to participate in the party - CUYOS
5. The girl who lives with your sister is very pretty - WHAT