Using whose in adjective clauses. Do you know who this girl is? I'll give you some hints, this is a photo of a girl whose eyes could not see, this is a photo of a girl whose ears could not hear. This is a photo of a girl whose teacher taught her to read, write, and even speak and this is a photo of a girl whose name is famous all over the world, do you know who this girl is? It's Helen Keller. Now, notice all of the sentences begin with the same main clause, this is a photo of a girl followed by adjective clauses that are underlined. Now all of these adjective clauses begin with the same word, whose, which is a possessive pronoun. Let's talk a little bit more about possessive pronouns. The most common ones are: my, your, her, his and it's, our and their, which are all words that represent nouns and that show ownership or relationship. For instance, my hair is messy today, my hair shows ownership. Mrs. McGee is their teacher, their teacher shows relationship. Now, let's talk about a different possessive pronoun, one which we use with adjective clauses. Whose, take a look at this photo, I want to say that I met this man and that there were certain features about him that were unique. I met a man whose mustache is very long, what else could we say? I met a man whose voice is very deep, what about this photo? I want to say I saw a dog with certain features. I saw a dog whose ears are very big. I saw a dog whose legs are short. Do you see a pattern, after whose add the noun? In these examples, we see whose mustache, whose voice, whose ears and whose legs, followed by the main verb in the adjective clause. Great, we know that whose represents a noun. In adjective clauses whose can represent either the subject or the object of the main clause. This is a photo of a girl whose eyes could not see, whose represents girl. I met a man whose mustache is very long, whose represents man and I saw a dog whose ears are very big, whose represents dog. Now, in all three of these sentences, do you think that whose represents the subject or the object of the main clause? Good job, it's the object but what about the subject? Take a look at this clause, the boy is the youngest, this is going to be our main clause and notice that the boy is the subject of the clause. We could say, the boy whose shirt is red is the youngest, and who's represents the boy, the subject of the main clause. Here's another example, the girl is the fastest. The girl whose hair is black is the fastest, whose represents girl, the subject of the main clause. Great. Now be careful because the possessive pronoun whose is not the same as who's, which is to contraction of who is. See if you can fill in the blanks with the correct who's. Number 1, the lady blank holding her belly is eight months pregnant. Number 2, the lady blank belly is very round, is eight months pregnant. Did you figure it out? Number 1, the lady who's or who is holding her belly is eight months pregnant. Number 2, the lady whose belly is very round is eight months pregnant. Well, I want to thank you for watching, we'll see you next time.
