Relative pronoun
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. An example is the word which in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the relative pronoun which introduces the relative clause. The relative clause modifies the noun house. The relative pronoun, "which," plays the role of an object within that clause,."
In the English language, the following are the most common relative pronouns: which, who, whose, whom, whoever, whomever, and that, though some linguists analyze that in relative clauses as a conjunction / complementizer.
Antecedents
The element in the main clause that the relative pronoun in the relative clause stands for is the antecedent of that pronoun. In most cases the antecedent is a nominal, though the pronoun can also refer to a whole proposition, as in "The train was late, which annoyed me greatly", where the antecedent of the relative pronoun which is the clause "The train was late".In a free relative clause, a relative pronoun has no antecedent: the relative clause itself plays the role of the co-referring element in the main clause. For example, in "I like what you did", what is a relative pronoun, but without an antecedent. The clause what you did itself plays the role of a nominal in the main clause. A relative pronoun used this way is sometimes called a fused relative pronoun, since the antecedent appears fused into the pronoun.
Absence
Only about 7% of the languages around the world have relative pronouns. For example, Mandarin Chinese does not have relative pronouns at all and forms relative clauses by different methods.Even within languages that have relative pronouns, not all relative clauses contain relative pronouns. For example, in the English sentence "The man you saw yesterday was my uncle", the relative clause you saw yesterday contains no relative pronoun. It can be said to have a gap, or zero, in the position of the object of the verb saw.
Role
Other arguments can be relativised using relative pronouns:;Subject: Hunter is the boy who helped Jessica.
;Object complement: Hunter is the boy whom Jessica gave a gift to.
;Prepositional object: Jack built the house in which I now live.
;Possessor: ''Jack is the boy whose friend built my house.''
Variant forms
In some languages with gender, number, and noun declensions—such as German, Serbo-Croatian, Hindi, and Latin—the relative pronoun agrees with its antecedent in gender and number, while its case indicates its relationship with the verb in the relative or main clause. In some other languages, the relative pronoun is an invariable word.Words used as relative pronouns often originally had other functions. For example, the English which is also an interrogative word. This suggests that relative pronouns might be a fairly late development in many languages. Some languages, such as Welsh, have no relative pronouns. In some languages such as Hindi, the relative pronouns are distinct from the interrogative pronouns.
In English, different pronouns are sometimes used if the antecedent is a human being, as opposed to a non-human or an inanimate object.
With the relative pronouns, sentences and would read like this:
In sentences and, the words that and who are the relative pronouns. The word that is used because the bank is a thing; the word who is used because the teller is a person. Alternatively, which is often used in defining relative clauses in either case. For details see English relative clauses.