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Pronoun Types 15
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Personal pronounsLecture1.1
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Personal pronoun exercisesLecture1.2
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Possessive pronounsLecture1.3
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Possessive pronoun exercisesLecture1.4
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Gender and pronounsLecture1.5
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Stressed and unstressed pronounsLecture1.6
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Reflexive pronounsLecture1.7
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Demonstrative pronounsLecture1.8
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Demonstrative pronoun exercisesLecture1.9
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Interrogative pronounsLecture1.10
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Interrogative pronoun exercisesLecture1.11
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Relative pronounsLecture1.12
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Relatvie pronoun exercisesLecture1.13
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Indefinite pronounsLecture1.14
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Pronouns exercises (advanced)Lecture1.15
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Relative pronouns
Relative pronouns introduce relative clauses, which are a type of attributive adjunct: they give extra information about nouns, pronouns or noun groups, or even whole sentences.
[Het meisje [met het rode haar]] was Hannie Schaft.
The girl with the red hair was Hannie Schaft.
[Het meisje [dat rood haar had]], heette Hannie Schaft.
The girl who had red hair, was Hannie Schaft.
In both sentences above the subject has been placed inside square brackets. Within each subject there is an attributive adjunct (within another set of brackets) which offers additional information about ‘the girl’. In the second sentence this is dat rood haar had, a relative clause.
The most frequently used relative pronouns are die, dat and wat. Die and dat are used when the antecedent they refer to is a noun or noun group. If the noun they qualify is a de word, the relative pronoun is die. If it is a het word, the relative pronoun is dat. Plurals are, of course, de words.
| common (de words) | die |
| neuter (het words) | dat |
Er zijn Nederlandse kinderen (de word) die niet zo goed kunnen spellen.
There are Dutch children who can’t spell very well.
Luuk is het jongetje (het word) dat in de dierentuin is kwijtgeraakt.
Luuk is the boy who got lost in the zoo.
Wat as relative pronoun
If the antecedent is an indefinite pronoun or numeral, the relative pronoun wat is used (although dat may be also used). This includes words like iets, niets, weinig, veel, alles.
Grammatica is iets wat sommige mensen moeilijk vinden.
Grammatica is iets dat sommige mensen moeilijk vinden.
Grammar is something that some people find difficult.
If the antecedent is an entire sentence, the relative pronoun wat must be used.
Amsterdam is een toeristenparadijs, wat de stad voor zijn inwoners soms onleefbaar maakt.
Amsterdam is a paradise for tourists, something which sometims makes the city unbearable for its inhabitants.