Restrictive & non restrictive clauses Do the following pairs of sentences mean the same thing? 1a My uncle, who lives in London, is very rich. 2b My uncle who lives in London is very rich. 2a The policies, which were unpopular, were rejected by the voters. 2b The policies which were unpopular were rejected by the voters. 3a My niece, whose husband is out of work, will inherit the house, which I have always treasured. 3b My niece whose husband is out of work will inherit the house which I have always treasured. The first sentence in each pair has a non-restrictive clause within two commas, and the second has a restrictive clause. A non-restrictive clause simply adds more information into the sentence and does not affect the meaning of the main clause: it is therefore bracketed off with commas (1a = an uncle who happens to live in London). Conversely, a restrictive clause defines its referent in the main clause more specifically and contributes significantly to the meaning of the sentence. Thus it is that particular uncle who lives in London who is referred to (1b). In 2a, all policies were unpopular and all were rejected, whereas in 2b only the policies that were unpopular were rejected. Note that in restrictive clauses the non-human relative pronoun is either `that’ or `which’, whereas for human referents the relative pronoun can be either `who/m’ or `that’ (the man that/whom I will marry ....). 【查看更多】
