Question

Could you help me identify the relative pronoun and the noun or pronoun to which it relates?

The business manager for whom I work is very efficient.
Relative pronoun:
Noun or pronoun:

The child whose shoes were untied will probably trip over his shoe laces and fall down.
Relative pronoun:
Noun or pronoun:?

Answer 1

The relative pronoun is essentially what it is by definition: The pronoun relative to something else. So, perhaps ask yourself these questions:

1. Relative to what? Relative to a noun or pronoun.
2. What is the noun or pronoun? ". . . business manager" is the noun, as it is an occupation for a person.
3. What is the word that refers back to this noun?

You, the subject, are working for the business manager. So, you work for the person who is referred to as the business manager. To make this easier, you can rephrase the sentence as:

Who is the person I work for? I work for my business manager. He or she is very efficient.

Then, reformulate the question as an answer, and consider what word to substitute for the noun.

"My business manager" is the person I work for. As a result, since you have replaced "who", which was "whom" in the original sentence, "whom" is the relative pronoun.

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Again, ask yourself these questions:

1. Relative to what? Relative to a noun or pronoun.
2. What is the noun or pronoun? ". . . child" is the noun, as it is a person.
3. What is the word that refers back to this noun?

We can rephrase the sentence to use a more familiar structure.

"The child will probably trip over his shoe laces and fall down because his shoes were untied."

Determine what pronoun "his" was previously. "His" was changed from "whose". Whose shoes were untied? His shoes.

Thus, "whose" is the relative pronoun.

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From the above problems, we can say that relative pronouns refer back to the previous noun or pronoun.

A large list of these is:

• that
• when
• which
• whichever
• whichsoever
• who
• whoever
• whosoever
• whom
• whomever
• whomsoever
• whose
• whosesoever
• whatever
• whatsoever