RELATIVE PRONOUNS.
Function of the relative pronoun.
104. Relative pronouns differ from both personal and interrogative pronouns in referring to an antecedent, and also in having a conjunctive use. The advantage in using them is to unite short statements into longer sentences, and so to make smoother discourse. Thus we may say, "The last of all the Bards was he. These bards sang of Border chivalry." Or, it may be shortened into,—
"The last of all the Bards was he,
Who sung of Border chivalry."
In the latter sentence, who evidently refers to Bards, which is called the antecedent of the relative.
The antecedent.
105. The antecedent of a pronoun is the noun, pronoun, or other word or expression, for which the pronoun stands. It usually precedes the pronoun.
Personal pronouns of the third person may have antecedents also, as they take the place usually of a word already used; as,—
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us.—Lowell
In this, both his and who have the antecedent priest.
The pronoun which may have its antecedent following, and the antecedent may be a word or a group of words, as will be shown in the remarks on which below.
Two kinds.
106. Relatives may be SIMPLE or INDEFINITE.
When the word relative is used, a simple relative is meant. Indefinite relatives, and the indefinite use of simple relatives, will be discussed further on.
The SIMPLE RELATIVES are who, which, that, what.
Who and its forms.
107. Examples of the relative who and its forms:—
1. Has a man gained anything who has received a hundred favors and rendered none?—Emerson.
2. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon.—Dr Johnson.
3.
For her enchanting son,
Whom universal nature did lament.
—Milton.
4. The nurse came to us, who were sitting in an adjoining apartment.—Thackeray.
5.
Ye mariners of England,
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
—Campbell.
6. The men whom men respect, the women whom women approve, are the men and women who bless their species.—Parton
Which and its forms.
108. Examples of the relative which and its forms:—
1. They had not their own luster, but the look which is not of the earth.—Byron.
2.
The embattled portal arch he pass'd,
Whose ponderous grate and massy bar
Had oft roll'd back the tide of war.
—Scott.
3. Generally speaking, the dogs which stray around the butcher shops restrain their appetites.—Cox.
4. The origin of language is divine, in the same sense in which man's nature, with all its capabilities ..., is a divine creation.—W. D. Whitney.
(a) This gradation ... ought to be kept in view; else this description will seem exaggerated, which it certainly is not.—Burke.
(b) The snow was three inches deep and still falling, which prevented him from taking his usual ride.—Irving.
That.
109. Examples of the relative that:—
1.
The man that hath no music in himself,...
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
—Shakespeare
2. The judge ... bought up all the pigs that could be had.—Lamb
3. Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.—Emerson.
4. For the sake of country a man is told to yield everything that makes the land honorable.—H. W. Beecher
5. Reader, that do not pretend to have leisure for very much scholarship, you will not be angry with me for telling you.—De Quincey.
6. The Tree Igdrasil, that has its roots down in the kingdoms of Hela and Death, and whose boughs overspread the highest heaven!—Carlyle.
What.
110. Examples of the use of the relative what:—
1. Its net to entangle the enemy seems to be what it chiefly trusts to, and what it takes most pains to render as complete as possible.—Goldsmith.
2. For what he sought below is passed above, Already done is all that he would do.—Margaret Fuller.
3. Some of our readers may have seen in India a crowd of crows picking a sick vulture to death, no bad type of what often happens in that country.—Macaulay
[To the Teacher.—If pupils work over the above sentences carefully, and test every remark in the following paragraphs, they will get a much better understanding of the relatives.]