Grammar: ✨ Grammar Essentials: 🧩 Parts of Speech & 🏗️ Sentence Structure (Advanced) (B2) - Lesson 4: Omitting Relative Pronouns (in defining object clauses)

Grammar: Clauses & Sentence Structure

B2 Lesson 4: Omitting Relative Pronouns

What you will learn: By the end of this lesson, you will be able to identify when a relative pronoun can be omitted to make your speaking and writing sound more fluent.

Why It Matters: Sounding More Natural

Omitting the relative pronoun is a key skill for making your English sound more natural and less robotic. This is very common in everyday speech.

Formal / With Pronoun

The coffee that I drank this morning was delicious.

Natural / Without Pronoun

The coffee I drank this morning was delicious.

The Golden Rule 📖

You can only omit a relative pronoun (who, which, that) when it is the object of the verb in a defining relative clause. If it is the subject, you can NEVER omit it.

Subject vs. Object Pronouns

Case 1: Pronoun as Subject (CANNOT Omit)

"The woman who works at the bank is my cousin."

Analysis: In the clause 'who works...', the pronoun 'who' is the subject of the verb 'works'. Because it is followed directly by the verb, you cannot omit it.

Case 2: Pronoun as Object (CAN Omit)

"The woman (who) I met yesterday is my cousin."

Analysis: In the clause '(who) I met...', there is a new subject ('I') between the pronoun and the verb ('met'). Here, 'who' is the object. Therefore, you can omit it for a more natural sound: "The woman I met yesterday is my cousin."

Practice Your Grammar 🎯

Exercise: To Omit or Not to Omit?

For each sentence, decide if you can omit the relative pronoun.

1. In which sentence can you omit 'who'?
   • The man who lives upstairs is very noisy.
   • The man who I live upstairs from is very noisy.
   → Answer: (b). In (b), 'who' is the object. In (a), 'who' is the subject of 'lives'.
2. Rewrite, omitting the pronoun if possible: "This is the best food that I have ever eaten."
   → "This is the best food I have ever eaten." (Possible)
3. Rewrite, omitting the pronoun if possible: "The bus that goes to Phnom Penh is leaving now."
   → Cannot be omitted. ('that' is the subject of 'goes').

Your Grammar Mission ⭐

Writing Task: Combine & Omit

Combine these pairs of sentences into one. Omit the relative pronoun if possible.

1. You recommended a restaurant. We went to it last night.
   → We went to the restaurant you recommended last night.
2. The girl is very clever. She sits next to me in class.
   → The girl who sits next to me in class is very clever. (Cannot omit 'who'.)
3. The university is very old. My brother studies at it.
   → The university my brother studies at is very old.

Key Vocabulary

• Omit (Verb) | លុបចោល
  To leave out or not include something.
• Defining Relative Clause (Noun)
  A clause giving essential information to identify which person/thing we mean. It does not use commas.
• Subject / Object (Nouns) | ប្រធាន / កម្មបទ
  The person/thing that performs the action (subject) vs. receives the action (object).