1

I've been confused with the relative pronouns. I bring the following examples and the result after removing relative pronouns? Are they correct?

1a. This is the window which has been broken by me. ==>
1b. This is the window has been broken by me. (present perfect passive)

2a. This is the window which will be broken by me. ==>
2b. This is the window will be broken by me. (future passive)

3a. This is the window which is broken by me. ==>
3b. This is the window broken by me. (present passive)

4a. This is the window which was broken by me. ==>
4b. This is the window was broken by me. (past passive)

5a. This is Peter who will be playing football tomorrow. ==>
5b. This is Peter will be playing football tomorrow. (future continuous)

6a. This is Peter who was playing football yesterday. ==>
6b. This is Peter was playing football yesterday. (past continuous)

7a. This is Peter who is playing football now. ==>
7b. This is Peter playing football now. (present continuous)

Improve this question
  • Are you proposing to take out just the relative pronoun, or remove everything within parentheses? You have to preserve the tense of the verbs. And the verbs don't mean anything without the relative pronoun. Only in 1 & 3 could you omit the words in parenteses, but then they would be identical. – Brian Hitchcock Jan 23 '15 at 9:47
  • I edited the post for more clarification. – Mojtaba Jan 23 '15 at 10:48
  • Much clearer now. They're all wrong. No, you cannot remove the relative pronoun. – Brian Hitchcock Jan 24 '15 at 1:31
  • All wrong?!! Even in 3 and 7? I don't know why but It sounds correct at least for these two. – Mojtaba Jan 24 '15 at 15:09
  • 2
    My bad. 3 is ok. 7 is grammatical, but I think it carries a subtly different meaning. Maybe so subtle as to be a decent substitution. – Brian Hitchcock Jan 24 '15 at 23:56
1

If the sentence structure of your examples is to be kept, a relative pronoun is required in 1. and 2. but not in 3. "This is the window broken by me," is acceptable English. You could change the structure of 1. and 2. slightly to omit a pronoun, e.g. "This window has been broken by me," and "This window will be broken by me," but that omits "is a" in each case.

The same is true for 5. and 6. The meaning is approximately the same, but you need to omit "is a" if you omit "who".

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.