A Foundation Course in Reading German, 2017a

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12/8/2017
Unit: 8: Werden, relative clauses
5. Relative Pronouns and Relative Clauses
In Unit 6, we dealt with dependent clauses as introduced by subordinating
conjunctions. Now we will deal with another type of dependent clause, the relative
clause which is introduced with the German equivalent of “which,” “that,” “who,”
“whom,” etc. Examples in English:
I saw the cat which my dog hates.
I saw the cat that ate the mouse.
I saw the man who owns the cat.
I saw the house in which they live.
The German relative pronouns in the different cases are exactly the same as the
definite article, except for those bolded below. They are translated either as “who”
and its forms (“whose”, “whom”) or as “which,” “that,” and “what”:
MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER PLURAL
NOMINATIVE der die das die
ACCUSATIVE den die das die
DATIVE dem der dem denen
GENITIVE dessen deren dessen deren
Compare these with the definite articles in Unit 2. The differences are in the genitive
(“of which,” “whose”), where we see dessen and deren, and in the dative plural (“to
which,” “to whom”), where we see denen.
In much older German texts, we will find another form of the relative pronoun,
welch-, which is declined like the der– words as shown in Unit 3. There is no
genitive form of welch– as a relative pronoun.
Relative pronouns are used to introduce relative clauses. In the English sentence,
“The book that he is reading is very interesting,” the relative clause is, “that he is
reading,” and the main sentence is: “The book is very interesting.” The meaning of
a relative clause is to modify the item in the main sentence to which the entire
relative clause refers – in this case, “book.”