Reduced relative clauses - lesson and exercises

Reduced relative clauses are participle clauses which follow a noun. They are like relative clauses, but with the relative pronoun and auxiliary verb (if there is one) left out.

Because they modify nouns, (reduced) relative clauses are occasionally referred to as adjective clauses.

Reduced relative clauses are used most often instead of defining relative clauses, which are what we'll be mainly looking at.

This post is an expanded version of part of a longer post on participles and participle clauses.

Look at these reduced relative clauses using participles

1.	Who is that man waving at us?
2.	Most of those trying to get tickets were unsuccessful.
3.	All the workers made redundant last month have now been found new jobs.
4.	The money being collected will go to help a new orphanage

Preliminary exercise Now make full relative clauses using who or which and the verb be

1.	Who is that man waving at us?
2.	Most of those trying to get tickets were unsuccessful.
2.	All the workers made redundant last month have now been found new jobs.
4.	The money being collected will go to help a new orphanage.

Basic principles for making reduced relative clauses

1. We can only make reduced relative clauses when the relative pronoun is the subject of the relative clause.

• Active
• That woman who is talking to my wife is our local Member of Parliament.
  That woman talking to my wife is ...
• That woman who my wife is talking to is our local Member of Parliament.
  NOT That woman my wife talking to is ...
• Passive
• The man who is being taken away by the police is our neighbour.
  The man being taken away by the police...

2. Active tenses are replaced with a present participle (-ing form). Note that the present participle can replace various active tenses, not only present continuous

• Anyone wanting a ticket for the Final see me.
  (who wants - present simple)
• The train now arriving at Platform 3 is the 4.20 to Paddington
  (which is now arriving - present continuous)
• Teams completing the first round go into the quarter-finals.
  (which have completed - present perfect)
• People arriving late were not allowed in until the interval.
  (who arrived - past simple)

3. Passive tenses are replaced by the past participle (-ed forms) and being + past participle. When I say -ed forms, I'm including irregular form such as seen, broken etc.

The past participle replaces passive simple forms while the being form replaces passive continuous forms

• The student chosen as winner will get a prize.
  (that is chosen - present simple)
• The progress made yesterday will give us a head start.
  (which was made - past simple)
• None of the models inspected so far have passed the test.
  (that have been inspected) - present perfect
• The saplings being planted today will one day grow into huge trees.
  (which are being planted - present continuous)

Practice 1

Note - changing 'a, an' to 'the'

In these two exercises all the reduced relative clauses are defining ones, so any indefinite articles (a, an) inside the relative clause would usually change to definite ones (the). But this doesn't affect indefinite articles outside the relative clause. For example:

• A car was being driven by a young man - the car crashed into a tree.
• The car which was being driven by the young man crashed into a tree.
• The car being driven by the young man crashed into a tree.

There is one question in each of Ex 1a and Ex 1b where, for the sake of the exercise, you should change 'a' to 'the', although technically 'a' might also be possible.

Exercise 1a - match the sentence halves and complete the sentences below using a present (-ing) participle. Don't add any punctuation.

1.	Some employees have to work late	a	She moved to Australia
2.	A doctor lived in this house before us	b	She caught a shoplifter
3.	Some doctors attended a conference on malaria	c	They will be provided with taxis
4.	A blonde woman is wearing a dark suit	d	They urged governments to act
5.	Several roads lead to the city centre	e	They were all closed for the parade
6.	A woman runs the local shop	f	She is the new boss

1.	Employees .
2.	The doctor .
3.	Doctors .
4.	The blonde woman .
5.	All roads .
6.	The woman .

Exercise 1b - match the sentence halves and complete the sentences below using a present (-ing) or past (-ed etc) participle. Don't add any punctuation.

1.	A driver has been stopped by the police	a	He is going out with my sister
2.	A dog was hit by our neighbour's car	b	It is not seriously hurt
3.	A young man is playing the guitar	c	He was three times over the legal limit
4.	A lorry overturned on the motorway	d	He was nearly knocked down by a bus
5.	A horse is being ridden by a jockey in blue	e	It caused two lanes to be closed
6.	An elderly man was crossing the street	f	It is the odds-on favourite to win

1.	The driver .
2.	The dog .
3.	The young man .
4.	A lorry .
5.	The horse .
6.	An elderly man .

We can't use a reduced relative clause:

1. when the event or action in the defining relative clause comes before the event or action in the main clause.

• Trees which fell in the storm have been removed.
• Trees falling in the storm have been removed.

unless it is the cause of the event or action in the main clause:

• Trees which fell in the storm have resulted in several accidents.
• Trees falling in the storm have resulted in several accidents.

2. with active single completed actions

• The boy who fell off his bicycle broke his leg.
  The boy falling off his bicycle broke his leg.
• But we can use a reduced relative clause with passive single completed actions
• The boy who was knocked off his bicycle broke his leg.
  The boy knocked off his bicycle broke his leg.

3. In passive sentences when:

• a. there is a noun (or as here, a pronoun) between the relative pronoun and the verb:
• It was the way in which he was sacked that particularly shocked me.
  NOT the way in which he sacked ...
• b. when there is a modal other than will in the defining relative clause
  The students who will be selected tomorrow will be offered a scholarship
  The students selected tomorrow will be ...
  
  The students who should be selected are those that have worked the hardest.
  NOT The students selected tomorrow are those ...

Practice 2

Exercise 2 - Complete the sentences with a verb from the first box in participle form together with an expression from the second.

find · chat · stand · pile out · wag · be involved · play · be most interested

in the robbery · with the yoyo · on the phone · of the cinema · on the street
its tail · at the bus stop · in buying

1.	The woman was in a hurry so she hailed a taxi.
2.	I think the dog is a Jack Russel.
3.	The crowds looked very happy.
4.	The people our house were the Joneses.
5.	The men have all been arrested.
6.	The wallet was handed in to the police.
7.	The girl over there is the new secretary.
8.	The young boy is my brother.

Note - we also seem to be able to reduce relative clauses which include adjectives formed from past participles, like involved and interested when they follow the verb to be.

Other ways of shortening relative clauses

1. Omitting the -ing form when it is followed by a prepositional phrase

• We can omit the present participle when it is followed by a prepositional phrase:
• The people who were sitting at the back couldn't hear.
  The people sitting at the back couldn't hear.
  The people at the back couldn't hear.

• We can also do this when the verb in the relative clause is be and no participle is involved:
• The man who is in that big black car is the President of Erewhon.
  The man in that big black car is the President of Erewhon.

2. Remember that when the relative pronoun is the object of a defining relative clause, we can omit (leave out) who, which or that.

• The children (who) I taught all became geniuses. - direct object
• This is the hotel (which) I was telling you about. - object of the preposition about
• They're going to have to sell the house (that) they bought only a year ago. - direct object

A bit of grammar jargon - These structures are sometimes known as having a zero relative pronoun, and the resulting clause is occasionally called a contact clause

Although these are certainly relative clauses which have been reduced (shorthened), they are not what we normally refer to in EFL as reduced relative clauses, which involve one very basic principle:

As well as the relative pronoun being left out, the verb of the relative clause, including any auxiliary, is replaced by an -ing or -ed (etc) participle.

Practice 3

Exercise 3 - Rewrite the sentences, where possible replacing the underlined relative clauses with their shortest possible forms. Enter them into the boxes, as in the example.

• Use a reduced relative clause where possible
• If you can omit the participle altogether, do so. (1 question)
• If you can't use a reduced relative clause but can omit the relative pronoun, do so.
• If you can do none of these, enter the original clause (1 question).

0.	The people who are crossing the street are trying to get a better view.
	The people crossing the street are trying to get a better view.
1.	The woman who is talking to your mother is my aunt.
2.	The man who is standing by the window is my uncle.
3.	All those who do not need to buy tickets please go straight in.
4.	The first vineyard which I ever saw was in Germany.
5.	Wikipedia, which was launched in 2001, is one of the great internet successes.
6.	Animals which share the savannah include wildebeest and gazelles.
7.	All the candidates who were selected were given a second interview.
8.	All those who passed the test were given a second interview.
9.	LOL, which stands for Laughing Out Loud, is now in the OED.
10.	The bouquet was made from flowers which were grown locally.
11.	This the man who I was talking to you about.
12.	The man who won yesterday's lottery lives next door.

And what about non-defining relative clauses?

We sometimes also use reduced non-defining relative clauses. In fact there were two in that last exercise, Questions 5 and 9.

• Peter, (who was) concentrating on his work, didn't hear the doorbell.
• The young woman, (who was) living abroad at that time, didn't see her family very often.
• The book, (which was) first published in 1970, has sold over a million copies.
• Martha, (who was) brought up in the inner city, had never seen a cow before.

But very often we use an adverbial participle clause instead.

• Concentrating on his work, Peter didn't hear the doorbell.
• Living abroad at that time, the young woman didn't see her family very often.
• First published in 1970, the book has sold over a million copies.
• Brought up in the inner city, Martha had never seen a cow before.

We can omit the relative pronoun and the verb be when they are followed by descriptive noun phrases. These can include adverbial expressions like now, then, already etc.

• Peter Donaldson, (who is) our manager, graduated in chemical engineering.
• Last year's prize was won by Jenny MacDonald, (who was) at that time still a student.
• Glasgow, (which is) the largest city in Scotland, lies on the River Clyde.
• One of Glasgow's jewels is the Merchant City, (which is) now a thriving cultural district.

For more information and practice on adverbial participle clauses sees my post here.

Reduced Relative clauses and the Internet

I've found several problems with the way Reduced Relative clauses are treated on the Internet.

1. Only continuous active tenses? - Several websites suggest that we can only reduce relative clauses if they are in the continuous active, or in the passive. But as we have seen, we can also make reduced relative clauses from simple tenses and sometimes even from perfect tenses.

• The athlete who has won the most races is chosen as the Victor Ludorum.
  The athlete winning the most races is chosen as the Victor Ludorum.

2. There is/are ? - One video on YouTube suggests that the following constructions are reduced relative clauses:

• Are there dogs walking around outside
• Is there a car parked next to mine

Because we might (according to the teacher) say:

• Are there dogs which are walking around outside?
• Is there a car which is parked next to mine?

But the problem is that we simply wouldn't. These are not natural sentences, and it is highly unlikely that a native speaker would ever utter them.

The there is/are construction is often followed by a participle clause, as are verbs of perception, like see and hear, but this has nothing to do with Relative clauses. You can read more about these constructions in my post on participles and participle clauses.

• There is somebody having a party upstairs.
• There are some boys playing in the street.
• I saw a young boy throwing a stone at the window.
• I could hear my sister singing in the bath.

A native speaker simply wouldn't use a relative pronoun in these sentences, so if it isn't a relative clause in the first place, we can hardly make it a reduced relative clause.

Wikipedia and the Garden Path effect

You can pretty well forget the Wikipedia entry on reduced relative clauses as being of any practical help in using them, but it does talk about an interesting but pretty rare phenomenon known as the garden path effect.

Firstly, Wikipedia's definition of reduced relative clause is different from that used in EFL, giving as its main example:

Relative clause	The man who/that I saw was big.
reduced relative clause	The man I saw was big.

In EFL, we understand this to be simply dropping the relative pronoun when it refers to the object of the following verb. This is not what we think of as a reduced relative clause, for reasons I talked about above.

The rest of the article does talk about the use of participles in reduced relative clauses, but is all about the 'garden path effect', where their use can occasionally cause ambiguities. Just for fun we'll have a quick look at this, but it's very unlikely you will ever have any problems of this nature.

Why garden path effect? - There is an idiom in English:

To lead someone up the garden path - to deceive somebody, to make them believe something which is not true

Wikipedia gives two examples of the garden path effect. How do you think these two sentences might continue?

• The horse raced past the barn ...
• The florist sent the flowers ...

We would probably expect raced and sent to be normal verbs in the Past Simple, with the sentences continuing something like:

• The horse raced past the barn and ran into a nearby field.
• The florist sent the flowers to the address the customer had given her.

But raced and sent could also be past participles being used in reduced relative clauses with passive meaning, and with the sentences continuing in a different way:

• The horse (which was) raced past the barn fell and its rider came off.
• The florist (who was) sent the flowers was very happy to get them.

Part of the ambiguity is in the use here of the verb race, which could have two possible meanings:

• To run very fast
• To ride or drive something, for example a horse or car, very fast

And of course we'd normally expect a florist to send flowers rather than receive them.

Reference

Sources

• Michael Swan - Practical English Usage (Oxford) GoogleBooks
• Martin Hewings - Advanced Grammar in Use (Cambridge) GoogleBooks

Related posts

• Participles and participle clauses.
• A short exercise on Relative clauses
• Exploring grammar - types of clause

Links

• University College London - only one short paragraph, but their definition agrees with mine.
• Presentation - this was the best description I could find on the web.

Answers