[Lang:Eng](Certi.3:Intermediate Level) Relative pronouns (관계대명사)

I'd like to discuss relative pronouns here, although I might not use the precise grammatical terms as I'm not a teacher and I try to avoid them as much as possible.

Let's have a look...!!
Broadly speaking, there are two types under this category. One is called "a restrictive relative pronoun", and the other is "a non-restrictive relative pronoun".

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• A restrictive relative pronoun

A restrictive relative pronoun is a connecting word which identifies, limits, or describes the previous noun.
For example, "My friend who lives in NY is going to LA". A main actor in the example is "my friend who lives in NY" NOT JUST "my friend". The speaker might have more than one friend but the speaker is talking about a specific friend who lives in NY.
 I'll give you a comparative explanation with a non-restrictive relative pronoun in the end of this post.

 

• A non-restrictive relative pronoun

In the example sentence, a main actor is "my friend". The reason is the sentence is been splitting by a comma and the comma surrounded clause means JUST extra information about where "my friend" lives. Therefore, the main story is "My friend is going to LA". Furthermore, depending on sentence, it might imply that the speaker has one friend. I'll show you another example about this later.

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>>> Comparative explanation

i.e.: My brother who lives in NY is going to LA.
  => I might have more than 1 brother and I'm talking about my specific brother who lives in NY.
       My brother, who lives in NY, is going to LA.
  => I have ONLY one brother and he lives in NY.

 

Then I'd rather finish this post. Thank you for reading. If you have another opinion, Let me know about that, please.

FYI, generally, people who is studying English as the 2nd language are confused where they can breathe in the sentence. I'll give you a tip about that. You can have a break when you see a comma.
i.e.: My friend [NO BREAK] who lives in NY is going to LA.
       My friend,[BREAK] who lives in NY,[BREAK] is going to LA.
  Usually in the 2nd sentence, it's no problem but some people almost died to read the 1st sentence. If you are the person who almost died to read it, READ "My friend" and "who" straight away and then read the left part of the clause, "lives in NY". Otherwise, Listener can't distinguish "My friend who ~~~" and "My friend, who ~~~". So, nowadays many people think "TOMATO", "TM'AY'TO".