What is the Difference between Defining and Non-Defining Relative Clauses

Abstract

Defining and non-defining relative clauses they both belong to types of relative clauses. Before clarifying the difference between defining and non-defining relative clauses, it would be useful clearly understand what a relative clause is.

So, the relative clauses are used to state extra information about noun in the sentence. It is always just a combination of words (collocations) or clause, which are included as part of the main sentence.

e.g. My brother, who graduated from the Samarkand State University last academic year, is working as a teacher at school now.

The chunk “who graduated from the Samarkand State University” adds some additional information to above mentioned sentence.

Defining relative clauses give us essential information – information that tells us who or what we are talking about.

The woman who lives next door works in a bank.

These are the flights that have been cancelled.

We usually use a relative pronoun or adverb to start a defining relative clause: who, which, that, when, where or whose.