Editing Relative clause (section)

{{Short description|Grammatical structure in some languages}}
{{Hatnote|For details about relative clauses in English, see [[English relative clauses]].}}
{{use dmy dates |date=March 2024}}
A '''relative clause''' is a [[clause]] that modifies a [[noun]] or [[noun phrase]]<ref name="HP183">{{cite book |first1=Rodney D. |last1=Huddleston |first2=Geoffrey K. |last2=Pullum |title=A Student's Introduction to English Grammar |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=2005 |pages=183ff |oclc=57574762}}</ref> and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments in the relative clause refers to the noun or noun phrase. For example, in the sentence ''I met a man who wasn't too sure of himself'', the [[Dependent clause|subordinate clause]] ''who wasn't too sure of himself'' is a relative clause since it modifies the noun ''man'' and uses the pronoun ''who'' to indicate that the same "man" is referred to in the subordinate clause (in this case as its [[subject (grammar)|subject]]).

In many languages, relative clauses are introduced by a special class of [[pronoun]]s called ''[[relative pronoun]]s'',<ref>{{cite book|last=Kurzová |first=Helena |year=1981 |language=de |title=Der Relativsatz in den indoeuropäischen Sprachen |trans-title=Relative Clauses in the Indo-European Languages |location=Hamburg |publisher=Buske |page=117 |isbn=3-87118-458-6 |oclc=63317519}}</ref> such as ''who'' in the example just given. In other languages, relative clauses may be marked in different ways: they may be introduced by a special class of conjunctions called ''[[relativizer]]s'', the main verb of the relative clause may appear in a special morphological variant, or a relative clause may be indicated by word order alone.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lehmann |first=Christian |year=1984 |language=de |title= Der Relativsatz |trans-title=Relative Clauses |series=Language universals series; vol. 3 |location=Tübingen |publisher=G. Narr |page=438 |isbn=3-87808-982-1 |oclc=14358164}}</ref> In some languages, more than one of these mechanisms may be possible.