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Relative pronouns

Overview

Relative pronouns are used to join (1) two sentences or (2) a phrase to a clause, each of which shares a reference such as a noun or pronoun. As such, they "relate" one part to the other.

Que

Que is by far the most common of all relative pronouns, and as a relative it means who, whom, that, or which. It has only one form, and it can refer to both persons and things.

Quien, quienes

Unlike the relative pronoun que, quien and its plural form quienes refer only to persons and mean who or whom. These relatives occur as objects of the preposition and when the word is set off from the sentence with commas in a non-restrictive clause. Quien(es) also appears relatively infrequently in idiomatic expressions in which case it can mean he/she who or whoever.

Object of the preposition

In a non-restrictive clause, set off by commas

In idiomatic expressions

El cual, la cual, los cuales, las cuales

These relative pronouns, as well as the ones that immediately follow this section, mean which, who or whom. They are used (1) to remove ambiguity with respect to the antecedent and (2) after the prepositions por or sin or other prepositions of two syllables or more.

El que, la que, los que, las que

This series of relative pronouns shares the same uses as described above with el cual, la cual, etc. In addition, they translate the English he who, she who, and those who.

Lo que and lo que/lo cual

Lo que is used to translate the English what, in the sense of that which. For instance:

Lo que/lo cual is usually set off from the preceding phrase or clause by a comma. It means which, but it is unlike other relative pronouns in that it does not refer to a specific antecedent but to a verb, an idea, or a generality.

See also

Adjectives
Conjunctions