To form a sentence that describes a house using a relative clause, a defining relative clause, such as 'The houses that I saw were quite comfortable,' is essential to the sentence's meaning. A non-defining relative clause, like 'The houses, which I saw, were quite comfortable,' provides additional information but could be omitted without changing the main point.
The student is seeking assistance in forming a sentence that includes either a defining or a non-defining relative clause to describe a house. Relative clauses are used to give additional information about a noun, often a place, person, or thing. Defining relative clauses is essential to the meaning of the sentence, while non-defining relative clauses add extra information that could be removed without changing the sentence's overall meaning.
Here are examples of both:
- Defining relative clause: The houses that I saw were quite comfortable.
- Non-defining relative clause: The houses, which I saw, were quite comfortable.
In the defining relative clause, 'that I saw' identifies which houses the speaker is referring to. In the non-defining relative clause, 'which I saw' adds additional information, but it's not essential to know that the speaker saw the houses to understand the sentence.