Here is my question. In the first, is "this is the woman" an independent clause with subject and verb? And in the second, does the sentence have a complete meaning? Is it an independent clause? Do these sentences mean the same thing?
[1] This is the woman whose little boy is ill.
[2] The woman whose little boy is ill.
The way you parse the first sentence shouldn't be:
[This is the woman (whose little boy is ill)].
but
[This is (the woman whose little boy is ill)].
The woman whose little boy is ill is a noun phrase with a relative clause 'whose little boy is ill' as a modifier. The noun phrase functions as a complement of the verb 'is'.
[2] is not a complete sentence; it's merely a noun phrase with a modifying relative clause. Just like the noun phrase in [1]. So it's irrelevant to say it's an independent or a dependent clause.
