German Relative Clauses

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A relative clause is one sentence "plugged into" another which gives further information about a preceding noun or pronoun (relative clauses underlined in examples). In English they can start off with that, who, which or (most frequently) nothing at all:

The car (1) that/ (2) which / (3) ---- I told you about was already sold.
Das Auto, von dem ich dir erzählt habe, war schon verkauft.

In German, relative clauses have a function similar to that of their English equivalents, but there are several important differences in form:

• The relative pronoun cannot be omitted as in English variant 3 of the example sentence above.
  
  
• If the relative pronoun is the object of a preposition, that preposition must be brought up to the front of the clause too, like the more formal English variant of the example sentence above
  
  "... about which I told you..."
  
  
• Present participle modifiers must be expanded to complete clauses:

  The dog looking for the bone belongs to me.
  expands to ...which is looking...
  Der Hund, der nach dem Knochen sucht, gehört mir.

• As subordinate clauses, relative clauses are set off from other sentence elements with commas and have finite-verb-last word order.



• Relative clauses follow directly after the noun they modify, but if only a word or two (typically verb forms) remains at the end of the clause, it is usually finished off before the relative clause begins:

  Recently I went to the museum you told me about.
  Neulich bin ich ins Museum gegangen, von dem du mir erzählt hast. (Intervening word underlined.)

• The relative pronoun is a form of der, die, das... (all genitive as well as dative plural forms add -en).
  
  

  	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
  Nominative	der	die	das	die
  Accusative	den	die	das	die
  Dative	dem	der	dem	denen
  Genitive	dessen	deren	dessen	deren

  Gender and number derive from the noun or pronoun modified. The function of the pronoun in the relative clause determines its case.

  Wer ist der Typ (masc. sing.), der (subject > nominative) dich abends immer anruft?
  Who is the guy that always calls you in the evenings?

  Wer ist der Typ (masc. sing.), mit dem (object of mit > dative) ich dich gesehen habe?
  Who's the guy I saw you with?

  Distinguishing Criteria for that: Conjunction dass vs. Relative Pronoun

  Conjunction dass	Relative Pronoun der, die, das...
  1.Introduces noun clause which functions as subject or object of the verb in the main clause.	1. Introduces adjective clause which describes a preceding noun or pronoun in the main clause.
  2. No paraphrase of that possible in English.	2. Sentences with that can be paraphrased with who or which (e.g. sentence A above).
  3. Can be omitted in both English and German with verbs of communication (say, tell...) and cognition (think, believe...). (Ich glaube, sie ruft nicht mehr an.)	3. Cannot be omitted as in English.

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