Dialogue between student (S) and relative pronoun (RP)
S What is a RELATIVE?
RP A relative is a pronoun that connects a clause to a noun or another clause that it
modifies. THAT in this definition is a RELATIVE PRONOUN.
S Which is the most common relative?
RP I am. My name is QUE. I do a lot of work in Spanish. I'am especially good at joining
two sentences together, thereby avoiding repetition of a common noun. For example,
Leí un artículo ayer. Este artículo explica maravillosamente los pronombres relativos.
can be combined thus:
Leí un artículo ayer QUE describe / explica maravillosamente los pronombres relativos.
Doesn't this sound much better? (Sav Sí)
S Do you have many RELATIVES?
RP Oh, dear, yes. There is QUIEN, with whom I am confused quite regularly. I don't know
why since we don't even look alike. For starters, while I am invariable, my buddy
QUIEN has a plural form - QUIENES. We tend to act alike quite a bit, though. Then
there is EL CUAL. This character is a veritable chameleon, changing to LA CUAL.
LOS CUALES AND LAS CUALES depending on the gender and number of the noun
modified. EL CUAL's fraternal twin is EL QUE, also a chameleon. By now. you are
beginning to see that if one of us begins with EL, you can expect us to have the other
three forms – LA, LOS and LAS- EL QUE, LA QUE, LQS QUE, LAS QUE. Then, of
course, there are my distant cousins – LO QUE, LO CUAL and CUYO, this latter another chameleon -
CUYO. CUYA. CUYOS and CUYAS.
S There sure are a lot of you. Are you interchangeable? If not, how do I know which of you to choose?
RP Glad you asked. You see, although I am the most common - and most frequently used there are certain restrictions on my usage.
S Oh. oh! I was afraid of that. What kind of restrictions are we talking about?
RP Well, hmm, it depends on the type of clause in which I am used, whether I am referring to people or things when a preposition
precedes me, whether that preposition is long or short ...
S Hold it! Hold it! You are beginning to lose me.
PR I thought so. But let me simplify it for you.
S I am listening.
PR There are really only three cases when you, need to think about choosing from among my other relatives.
S That sounds simple enough. Which are these three cases?
PR The first is whether I am being used in a RESTRICTIVE CLAUSE (CLAUSULA
RESTRICTIVA o ESPECIFICATIVA) or whether I am being used in a NON-
RESTRICTIYE CLAUSE (CLAUSULA NO RESTRICTIVA o EXPLICATIVA).
S Say what? You call this simplifying? What on earth is this RESTRICTIVE/NON-
RESTRICTIVE clause bit?
PR I knew you would become a little upset. However, it's just a matter of terminology.
Don't let those high-sounding names scare you. I feel pretty confident you will relate to what they mean.
Why don't we try a little test?
Let's say you were reading a news article about an aircraft filled with passengers that
had to make an emergency landing in Cuba. One sentence read:
1. The passengers who were North Americans had to go through immigration.
How would you interpret this sentence?
Would you say -
Well, of all the passengers, ONLY those who were North Americans
had to go through immigration. (¿Sí, No, Quizás?)
Now, what if the sentence read:
2. The passengers, who were North Americans, had to go through immigration.
Do you get a different meaning? (¿Sí, No, Quizás?)
That is, the feeling now is that ALL the passengers were North Americans.
The underlined clauses are ADJECTIVAL CLAUSES. As you can see, adjectival clauses can be crucial to the meaning of the sentence. In # 1, we are restricting the going through immigration to only those passengers who were North Americans. In #2, we are including ALL the passengers. When the clause is crucial or essential to the meaning of the sentence, it is called a RESTRICTIVE CLAUSE (CLAUSULA RESTRICTIVA 0 ESPECIFICATIVA). When the clause is simply explanatory, it is called a NON-RESTRICTIVE CLAUSE (CLAUSULA NO RESTRICTIVA 0 EXPLICATIVA).
IN A RESTRICTIVE CLAUSE, ONLY QUE CAN BE USED.
Thus sentence #1 above will be rendered in Spanish:
Los pasajeros que eran norteamericanos tuvieron que pasar por la inmigración.
NOTE: QUIENIE/ES CAN NOT BE USED HERE!!!
S I think I understand. So how do we handle the NONRESTRICTIVE clauses?
PR As I mentioned earlier, there are three (3) situations when you need to start thinking of my other RELATIVES.
S Yes. We got slightly sidetracked with the Restrictive/Nonrestrictive bit.
PR True. But I am sure you'll agree it was necessary to clear that up. Anyway, here are the three situations when you need to make
selections from my other relatives.
SITUATION #1
1. NONRESTRICTIVE CLAUSES (Now you know what this is, right?)
FOR PEOPLE - USE QUIEN/ES
FOR THlNGS - USE QUE (That's me again!)
Let's take sentence #2, repeated here:
The passengers, who were North Americans, had to go through immigration.
The clause "who were North Americans" is merely explanatory, hence nonrestrictive.
Since Dassenaers are people (most times, anyway), use QUIENES.
Los pasajeros, QUIENES eran norteamericanos, tuvieron que pasar por la inmigración.
USE QUE for things:
The candlestick, which was made of silver, was found by Zenaida.
El candelabro, QUE era de plata, fue encontrado por Zenaida.
S That seems pretty clear. What are the other two situations?
PR Getting there.
SITUATION #2
2. When there are two antecedents (Jump or SALTO).
FOR PEOPLE AND THINGS - USE EL CUAL/LA CUAL / etc,
S No entiendo.
PR The problem here is that if we say in English something like:
Zenaida's boyfriend, WHO....
we know that WHO refers to “boyfriend”, right?
However, in Spanish, Zenaida's boyfriend must be translated:
EI novio de Zenaida, WHO...
WHO can thus refer to either Zenaida or the novio. Agreed? Both Zenaida and novio are antecedents. The sentence will thus be ambiguous.
In these cases - for both PEOPLE AND THINGS, use EL CUAL, LA CUAL, LOS CUALE
LAS CUALES to refer to the FIRST mentioned noun. We call this the SALTO or JUMP.
Zenaida's boyfriend, who - EJ novio de Zenaida, EL CUAL…
The stranger's girlfriend, who - La novia del forastero, LA CUAL…
The silver candlesticks, which - Los candelabros de plata, LOS CUALES ...
S O.K. I am with you so far (I think). So we have one more situation to deal with, right?
PR Correct. But promise you won't panic. The third situation has to do with the type of PREPOSITION which precedes me
and whether or not I am referring to a PERSON or THING.
S You know, I was fine up to here, but you are beginning to lose me again.
PR Not after you check out the following chart. So here goes:
SITUATION #3 AFTER PREPOSITIONS
FOR TYPE OF PREPOSITION RELATIVE PRONOUN
↓ ↓ ↓
a. PEOPLE ALL PREPS – LONG & SHORT USE QUIEN/ES
The stranger Zenaida was in love WITH* (de) abandoned her.
"With" is a preposition referring to "the stranger"
El forastero DE QUIEN estaba enamorada Zenaida la abandonó.
↓ ↓ ↓
b. THINGS SHORT PREPOSITIONS USE QUE
This is the house the barber lives in.
Esta es la casa EN QUE vive el barbero
↓ ↓ ↓
c. THINGS LONG PREPOSITIONS USE EL CAUL / LA CIAL
The convent, behind which there is a cemetery, ....
EI convento, DETRÁS DEL CUAL hay un cementerio…
S Which prepositions are considered short, and which long?
PR Basically, all the monosyllabic (one syllable) prepositions are short. Here is a mnemonic for you:
CONDENA - for CON / DE / EN/A.
S But if the short syllables are monosyllabic, how come you did not Include SIN and POR in this list? They sure look -
and sound - monosyllabic to me.
PR You are correct. However, these two are included with the LONG PREPS. I will let you figure out why.
S Thanks a lot, buddy.
PR De nada. Stay tuned in class if you have not figured out why.
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