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Anonymous Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

Relative Clause

Hi,

Can I say: " He who is a former student lives in Boston."

"Who lives in Chester is a former student"

Can you please explain why?

Thank you.
  

Top answer

" Yes, but why would you want to? It's grammatically correct, and yet it makes very little sense. Anonymous "Who lives in Chester is a former student" No.

  • " Yes, but why would you want to?
  • It's grammatically correct, and yet it makes very little sense.
  • Anonymous "Who lives in Chester is a former student" No.
  • This is not grammatical.
  • You can't start a sentence with a relative clause.
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5 Answers
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AnonymousCan I say: " He who is a former student lives in Boston."
Yes, but why would you want to? It's grammatically correct, and yet it makes very little sense.
Anonymous"Who lives in Chester is a former student"
No. This is not grammatical. You can't start a sentence with a relative clause. who lives in Chester
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Who can either be used as a question or to introduce a relative clause. To make a question you put who first.

Who lives in Chester? is a former student.

To introduce a relative clause, put it directly after the noun it modifies.

George who lives in Chester is a former student.

"who lives in Chester" is a relative clause modifying "George." "Is" is
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Thank you so much!

I have been studying English for a long time. Sometimes I am just not sure how to use some grammar forms. I want to check all the possible answers.

He is a personal pronoun and we do not use adjective clause to modifyi it.
Am I right?

So for example, we will also not say:

They who come from Europe are the best students in our school.
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AnonymousHe is a personal pronoun and we do not use adjective clause to modifyi it.
It is not that we never use a relative clause with a personal pronoun, but it is not common, and it is usually associated with special styles of writing, such as poetry. Ordinarily we say the people or those or some other expression instead of they, for e
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Thank you so much! One less grammar problem for me :-)Emotion: smile

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