Relative clauses
A relative clause is a clause inserted after a noun to give further information about that noun.
The man who lives next door is a policeman
The coat which / that I bought yesterday was expensive
The relative clauses in these two sentences give further information about the man and the coat. In English, we usually introduce relative clauses with who, which or that. These words are called relative pronouns.
German relative pronouns:
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Plural | |
| N | der | die | das | die |
| A | den | die | das | die |
| G | dessen | deren | dessen | deren |
| D | dem | der | dem | denen |
Most of these forms are the same as those in the der/die/das table.
The gender of the relative pronoun depends on the word you are referring back to:
Der Mann, der nebenan wohnt, ist Polizist.
The man who lives next door is a policeman
Die Lampe, die auf dem Tisch steht, war sehr teuer.
The lamp that's standing on the table was very expensive
Here we have der referring back to der Mann and die referring back to die Lampe. Notice that relative pronouns also act as verb kickers and that wohnt and steht are at the end of the clauses
The case of the relative pronoun depends on the part the relative pronoun is playing inside the relative clause. In the examples so far, the relative clauses were are nominative, because they were the subject all the way through the clause.
Der Mann, der nebenan wohnt, ist Polizist. (Der Mann is still subject of the verb)
However, the relative pronoun can also be the direct object (accusative of its clause:
Der Mann, den ich gestern besuchte, ist Polizist. (The idea of this clause is I (subject) visited the man (direct object)
Der Film, den ich geschaut habe, war toll! (The film that I watched was great!)
The dative pronouns are needed for the indirect object of the relative clause, or after prepositions requiring the dative:
Die Frau, der ich geholfen habe, war sehr dankbar (The woman, whom I helped was very thankful) (helfen takes the dative!)
Der Junge, mit dem ich Tennis spiele, heisst Jürgen. (The boy with whom I play tennis with is called Jürgen) (mit +dative)
In the dative plural denen is required!
Die Freunde, mit denen ich in Urlaub fahre, kommen aus der Schweiz. (The friends with whom I'm going on holiday with come from Switzerland)
The genitive forms dessen and deren are the German equivalents of whose. dessen refers to back to masculine or neuter singular word, and deren refers back to feminine singular word or any plural word.
Die Frau, deren Sohn krank ist, ist unsere Nachbarin. (The woman whose son is ill is our neighbour)
Der Junge, dessen Vater im Ausland arbeitet, wohnt bei seiner Mutter. (The boy whose father works abroad lives with his mother)
Remember to chose dessen or deren according to the word you are referring back to (i.e. above, Frau and Junge), not according to the word that follows.