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I am preparing for a prestigious examination that opens the doors for becoming a top dog in the government. English plays a vital role in the examination. So, I've started taking lessons from an engineer-turned English teacher. He is quite famous here in India. He was teaching relative pronouns the other day when this particular sentence came up.

The thief stole the little money which he had saved for his daughter's marriage.

The teacher said that it was wrong to use 'Which' and it should be replaced by another relative pronoun 'That'.

The thief stole the little money that he had saved for his daughter's marriage.

I thought that 'Which' and 'That' were perfectly interchangeable in the sentence and it was just the matter of taste. When I asked him, he said that 'That' is used when there is an emphasis on the antecedent. He argued that the phrase 'The little' puts an emphasis on the antecedent 'Money' and hence 'That' was the right choice.

I did not like this weird logic and hence, I want your two cents on it. Please help me.

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    "Which" is certainly not ungrammatical, but there is a preference for "that", probably due, as you say, to the presence of the determiner phrase "the little".
    – BillJ
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 12:29
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    This example sentence is a poor choice to begin with. How can you steal something that you've previously saved? However famous this guy is as an engineer, he's a lousy English teacher.
    – gotube ♦
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 15:29
  • "He" is supposed to be anaphoric to someone mentioned earlier in the discourse. Also, it should be "wedding", not "marriage".
    – BillJ
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 15:38
  • @gotube yes, BillJ is right. 'He' refers to another person rather than thief himself. I guess, the idea is something related to Defining and Non-defining Clauses. Is the sentence a 'defining' one? What do you think?
    – Ashutosh
    Commented Aug 16, 2022 at 1:21

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Traditionally, 'that' is for introducing defining clauses (essential information that helps identify the subject) and 'which' is for introducing non-defining clauses (non-essential information) - but as you state, these days it is mostly just a matter of preference. However, some style guides may insist you use the correct one. If your teacher is correcting you for this reason, it may be your educational institution has such a guide.

If you want to strictly follow that rule of grammar, you'd have to consider whether the information that follows the determiner is defining or not. Let's say there were two piles of money, set aside for different purposes, and only one was stolen. You might need to say "the money that was for..[x]" to identify which pile of money was taken. It defines which money you are talking about. But really, the main point seems to be that money was stolen, and the intended purpose of the money is not essential to the story.

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  • So, on orthodox grammar grounds, 'That' is more correct than 'Which'?
    – Ashutosh
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 11:54
  • @Ashutosh It all depends on whether you consider the information that follows to be defining. Let's say there were two piles of money, set aside for different purposes, and only one was stolen. You could say "the money that was for..[x]" to identify which pile of money was taken. But if the intended purpose of the money is not essential to the story then it is not a defining clause.
    – Astralbee
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 11:57
  • the use of the definite article "the"" indicates that the particular sum of money is particularly important, so if you follow the "that is defining" rule, then "that" is the better choice.
    – JavaLatte
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 12:28
  • @JavaLatte I'd agree with you if was "the money", but that isn't what it says - it is "the little money". Idiomatically, that means it is the only money they were able to save, in which case there is no other money from which to distinguish it and no need to define it any further.
    – Astralbee
    Commented Aug 15, 2022 at 12:31
  • @Astralbee After searching for defining and non-defining relative clauses on YouTube, I've come to know that 'That' exclusively introduces a defining clause. 'The little money that he had saved for his daughter's marriage' looks a 'defining' clause to me and I am going to prefer using 'That' from now on. But please tell me if it will be counted as a 'serious' error if one uses 'Which' instead of 'That'. And if natives will even notice that?
    – Ashutosh
    Commented Aug 16, 2022 at 4:30

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