Defining relative clause
That man is my brother.
The man in the middle is my brother.
The man with the cigarette is my brother.
The man is my brother. (said in a company where there is only one man)
In all of the sentences above the phrase the man/that man is defined in some way, that is, it has a clear reference in the given contextThe situation within which something exists or happens, or an utterance is made.. This means we know which man we are talking about. Another way of defining a nounA part of speech that names a person, place or thing. E.g.: The koala is a marsupial. ("koala", "marsupial") can be using a defining relative clauseA group of related words containing a subject and a verb.. This type of relative clause defines the noun that it describes, which means that the noun would have no reference without the clause.
The man you saw yesterday is my brother.
The defining relative clause is not separated with commas from the rest of the sentence.
Grammar quotes
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
–
Albert Einstein
Christmas is a time when you get homesick — even when you're home.
–
Carol Nelson
There is no man living that cannot do more than he thinks he can.
–
Henry Ford
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