Defining and non-Defining Relative Clauses
Dear teachers,
I came across the following two sentences in a grammar book:
1. Twenty demonstrators were arrested, some of whom the police subsequently charged.
2. Lawyers have been hired to represent the demonstrators some of whom the police subsequently charged.
The author of the grammar said sentence 1 is a non-defining relative clause, and sentence 2 is a defining relative clause. Adding on, he said sentence 2 is not grammatical. All he said was, such a construction is not possible in defining relative clause.
Could someone tell me why sentence 2 is not correct?
Thank you.
Top answer
Selvakumar 1. Twenty demonstrators were arrested, some of whom the police subsequently charged. The relative clause does not define (specify) these demonstrators.
- Selvakumar 1.
- Twenty demonstrators were arrested, some of whom the police subsequently charged.
- The relative clause does not define (specify) these demonstrators.
- Thus, it is a non-defining clause and, by strict rules of grammar, must be set off by a comma.
- The sentence without the clause still retains its essential meaning.
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Selvakumar1. Twenty demonstrators were arrested, some of whom the police subsequently charged.
The relative clause does not define (specify) these demonstrators. Thus, it is a non-defining clause and, by strict rules of grammar, must be set off by a comma.
The sentence without the clause still retains its
0some of whom (= some of the demonstrators) includes the demonstrators, so it can't be defining the demonstrators. That is, the relative clause can't be telling us more specifically which demonstrators are meant because it only goes on to talk about some of them.
For example, if I see a display of shirts for sale in a department store, and I say to you These are expensive shi
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