Something a little more practical about relative clauses

After my rather heavy session yesterday with Mr. Gwynne's relative clauses, I thought I'd follow it up with something a bit more useful.  If your reader has to negotiate such a convoluted path and so many commas to understand what you have written, you would be better to rewrite the sentence.  However, relative clauses can really add variation and effect to children's writing, so let's forget about introducing brothers and sisters and see how we can help children understand this type of clause. (It might also be worth remembering that, if the draft National Curriculum is adopted in its current form, relative clause and relative pronoun will be terminology for Year 5 children.) 

Children use these constructions already in their writing and we encourage use through Talk for Writing activities.  For example, when we learn a story in class so that children can imitate or innovate the structure and language, we highlight function words such as 'who' with actions to help the children remember to add them.  If you name a character and follow it with 'who', you have to go on and add more information about that character.  Try it out and see:

There once was a young boy.  (This would be a rather boring start to a story.)
There once was a young boy, who...  (Well, now we may get something a bit more interesting!  The comma here indicates that the relative clause is going to add some additional information for the reader - a non-restrictive relative clause for those of you who want to know.)

And I would start off with relative clauses that add additional information.  Children will need to understand that they are expanding information about the noun (expanding the noun phrase).  I would use my sentence toolkit here and model expanding my tape measure to show how the noun phrase is expanding.  They will already have experienced the expanding tape measure as they will have used it with me to expand the noun phrase by adding determiners, adverbs and adjectives before the main noun (premodification).

Provide a basic noun phrase and recap how we can add information before the main noun:

• the fox
• the red fox
• the wily, red fox

Challenge the children to add the word 'which' after the noun and expand the noun phrase.  Take suggestions and write one on the board.  Model using the comma screwdriver to demarcate the clause and question childen about whether this clause completes the sentence.  Does it make sense, or do we need to add something else.

•  the wily, red fox, which hadn't eaten for a week

 Through discussion, help children to understand that this noun phrase only forms part of their sentence and they need to go on to say what the fox is doing/feeling.  Again, ask for suggestions and model completing the sentence:

• The wily, red fox, which hadn't eaten for a week, slunk around the chicken house. 

Discuss how the commas now enclose the relative clause and can be used as handles to lift out the clause.  The sentence will still make sense because this clause just adds additional information and is subordinate to the main clause: The wily, red fox slunk around the chicken house.

You can also show how the whole structure of noun and relative clause is part of the noun phrase, because the whole can be substituted by a pronoun: It slunk around the chicken house.  That's a useful test of a noun phrase.

Once children have this knowledge, they can be challenged to use the relative pronouns in their independent writing.  They should use 'who' for people and 'which' for objects and places.  Peer discussion can identify what additional information is provided and whether this enhances the information or not.

Gwynne's Grammar Test - Restrictive and non-restrictive postmodification

OK, I needed to sort this one out in my head, but think I'm there now!  Warning - this is one for true nerds and I don't really understand what it's doing in a general grammar test.

This question appeared in Gwynne's grammar test (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationquestions/9987757/Good-grammar-test-can-you-pass.html) and reworded in The One Show's grammar test (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22512744).  There has been a lot of fuss online about it, so let's see if I can shed any light on it.

"I should like to introduce you to my sister Amanda, who lives in New York, to my brother Mark who doesn't, and to my only other sibling, Evelyn." What gender is Evelyn?
1.  Evelyn is male
2.  Evelyn is female
3.  Impossible to know from the wording of the sentence whether Evelyn is male or female.

Interestingly the above wording appeared in the answer section, but the quiz now has a different wording, as has The One Show version:
" I should like to introduce you to my sister Amanda, who lives in New York, to Mark, my brother who doesn't, and to my only other sibling, Evelyn."

When a noun is postmodified the information can be additional information, in which case it is enclosed in commas and referred to as non-restrictive or non-defining, or it can identify the noun, in which case the commas are not used and the clause is said to be restrictive or defining:

• my sister, who lives in New York,  (the relative clause is providing additional information)
• my sister who lives in New York, (the relative clause is identifying which sister - the one that lives in NewYork)

In the sentence "I should like to introduce you to my sister, who lives in New York, to my brother who doesn't, and to my only other sibling, Evelyn." we can deduce that there is only one sister and the writer has offered the additional information that she happens to live in New York.  However, by omitting commas after brother, the writer is indicating that he has more than one brother and is specifying the brother that doesn't live in New York.  We can deduce that Evelyn is male and also lives in New York.

Without the inclusion of the names 'Amanda' and 'Mark' this question would have been much more straightforward.  However, our language also allows something called non-restrictive and restrictive apposition.  Apposition is a way of linking grammatical elements, where each element refers to the same thing:

•  Swansea, her home town, held a special place in her heart. ('Swansea' and 'her home town' are the same place)
•  Cheetah, my chimpanzee, stole the banana ('Cheetah' and 'my chimpanzee' refer to the same animal - sorry to stereotype on the behaviour front all you chimps out there!)

When punctuating, the rules are the same as they are for relative clauses.  If the apposition is additional information, it is enclosed in commas; if it identifies the first element, no commas are added:

• Mr. Northern, my teacher, will be at the meeting. (additional information - non-restrictive apposition)
• Mr. Northern my teacher will be at the meeting. (It is Mr. Northern my teacher who will be at the meeting, not any other Mr. Northern that I know - restrictive apposition.)

So the fact that 'my sister Amanda' does not have a comma between 'sister' and 'Amanda' implies that there is more than one sister, as Amanda here is restrictive apposition and is identifying which sister the writer is discussing.

In the first wording 'my brother Mark who doesn't' is very confusing.  Mark is restrictive as is the relative clause.  Perhaps that is why it was changed.

In the second question 'to Mark, my brother who doesn't' implies another brother because the restrictive relative clause is postmodifying 'my brother'.  So can we deduce another brother and another sister?  Quite frankly, I don't care.

Why on earth was this question included?  The only possible, sensible reason I can think of is to highlight the ridicuous nature of grammar tests!