_By what gender of the pronouns would you refer to the following nouns?_
Snake, death, care, mercy, fox, bear, walrus, child, baby, friend (uncertain sex), friend (known to be Mary), everybody, someone, artist, flower, moon, sun, sorrow, fate, student, foreigner, Harvard University, earth, Germany?
23. RELATIVE PRONOUNS. Relative Pronouns are pronouns used to introduce adjective or noun clauses that are not interrogative. In the sentence, _The man THAT I MENTIONED has come_, the relative clause, _that I mentioned_, is an adjective clause modifying _man_. In the sentence, _WHOM SHE MEANS, I do not know_, the relative clause is, _whom she means_, and is a noun clause forming the object of the verb _know_.
The relative pronouns are _who_ (_whose, whom_), _which, that_ and _what_. _But_ and _as_ are sometimes relative pronouns. There are, also, compound relative pronouns, which will be mentioned later.
24. _Who_ (with its possessive and objective forms, _whose_ and _whom_) should be used when the antecedent denotes persons. When the antecedent denotes things or animals, _which_ should be used. _That_ may be used with antecedents denoting persons, animals or things, and is the proper relative to use when the antecedent includes both persons and things. _What_, when used as a relative, seldom properly refers to persons. It always introduces a substantive clause, and is equivalent to _that which_; as, _It is WHAT (that which) he wants_.
25. _That_ is known as the RESTRICTIVE RELATIVE, because it should be used whenever the relative clause limits the substantive, unless _who_ or _which_ is of more pleasing sound in the sentence. In the sentence, _He is the man THAT DID THE ACT_, the relative clause, _that did the act_, defines what is meant by man; without the relative clause the sentence clearly would be incomplete. Similarly, in the sentence, _The book THAT I WANT is that red-backed history_, the restrictive relative clause is, _that I want_, and limits the application of _book_.
26. _Who_ and _which_ are known as the EXPLANATORY or NON-RESTRICTIVE RELATIVES, and should be used ordinarily only to introduce relative clauses which add some new thought to the author's principal thought. _Spanish, WHICH IS THE LEAST COMPLEX LANGUAGE, is the easiest to learn_. In this sentence the principal thought is, _Spanish is the easiest language to learn_. The relative clause, _which is the least complex language_, is a thought, which, though not fully so important as the principal thought, is more nearly coördinate than subordinate in its value. It adds an additional thought of the speaker explaining the character of the Spanish language. When _who_ and _which_ are thus used as explanatory relatives, we see that the relative clause may be omitted without making the sentence incomplete.