Evolve Digital Level 5 – English 5

Grammar summary
Unit 3 Lesson 1: Relative pronouns; reduced relative clauses

Relative pronouns

• Use who and that to refer to people.

• Use that and which to refer to things.
• Use whose to talk about possession.
• Use where to refer to places.
• Use when to refer to times.
• A relative pronoun introduces a relative clause. The relative pronoun can be
the subject or the object of a relative clause.

Examples of subject relative clauses:

"Piero is one of my best friends. He is known for his amazing piano-playing."
"Piero, who is known for his amazing piano-playing, is one of my best friends."

Examples of object relative clauses:

"Piero is my friend. I can only play music with him."
"Piero is my only friend that I can play music with."

Reduced relative clauses

• Relative clauses give extra information about a topic.

• In a subject relative clause with the verb be, both the relative pronoun and the
verb be can be left out to reduce the sentence. The information in the relative
clause isn't essential and there is no change in meaning if you reduce this
type of relative clauses.

Examples:
"Piero, known for his amazing piano-playing, is one of my best friends."
"Harry, a regular customer, was seen there at 1:55."
"The individual responsible for this crime is obvious."

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Unit 3 Lesson 2: Present participles
• The present participle is the -ing form of a verb.
• Present participles and participle phrases give more information about a noun.
• When two things happen at the same time, use the present participle form of
the second verb after a comma.
• Present participles can introduce a participle phrase.
• A participle phrase goes immediately after the subject of the phrase.

Examples:
"A tree falling on the ground makes a loud noise."
"People chatting on a hike frighten the animals."
"I often sit in the forest, observing things around me."
"Right now I'm walking in the forest, looking at the bugs."
"Birds flying across the summer sky always make me smile.
"A ladybug eating a leaf looks so fragile."

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