Chapter 7 — Relative Clauses (連体修飾節)

In Stage 1, you built sentences one clause at a time: someone does something, something exists somewhere, something is a certain way. Those sentences were complete on their own. But natural Japanese rarely consists of isolated simple sentences. Real Japanese packs information inside other sentences — and the most fundamental way it does this is through relative clauses.

A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun. In English, you say "the person who is reading a book" or "the cake that my friend made." The bolded portions are relative clauses. English marks them with relative pronouns — who, which, that. Japanese has no relative pronouns at all. Instead, it places the modifying clause directly before the noun, with nothing connecting them but word order. This is one of the most important structural differences between the two languages, and mastering it is essential for reading anything beyond the most elementary Japanese.

This chapter teaches you to build and parse relative clauses in Japanese. By the end, you will be able to understand sentences like 去年 友達と 一緒に 行った レストランで 母が 作った ケーキを 食べた — "At the restaurant I went to with a friend last year, I ate the cake my mother made." That sentence contains two relative clauses and is perfectly natural Japanese.

7.1 Japanese Relativizes by Gapping

In English, relative clauses use relative pronouns to signal the relationship between the clause and the noun it modifies:

• The person who is reading a book.
• The cake that my friend made.
• The restaurant where we ate.

Japanese does none of this. There is no word for "who," "which," "that," or "where" in a relative clause. Instead, Japanese simply takes a complete sentence, removes the noun that is shared with the main clause, and places the remaining clause directly before that noun.

Consider the sentence 人が 本を 読んでいる — "A person is reading a book." Now suppose you want to say "the person who is reading a book." Japanese takes the clause, removes the noun that matches (人), and places the remaining clause before it:

本を 読んでいる 人

That is the entire mechanism. The noun 人 appears at the end. Everything before it is a clause with a "gap" — a missing piece — where 人 logically belongs. The listener fills in the gap: "the person [who is] reading a book."

This technique is called gapping. The noun that was removed leaves a gap in the clause. The listener or reader must figure out what role the noun played in the original clause. Was it the subject? The object? The location? The time? Japanese does not tell you. Context does.

This means that parsing relative clauses in Japanese requires you to work backwards: you see a noun, you look at the clause before it, and you figure out where the noun fits in that clause. This is the opposite direction from English, where the relative pronoun at the beginning of the clause tells you the role immediately.

7.2 The Modifying Clause Precedes the Noun

This is the fundamental rule of Japanese modification, and it applies to everything, not just relative clauses.

In English, modifiers can come before or after a noun:

• A tall person. (before)
• The person who is tall. (after)

In Japanese, modification always comes before the noun. A single adjective comes before the noun (高い 山 — "a tall mountain"). A clause also comes before the noun (本を 読んでいる 人 — "the person who is reading a book"). There is no post-nominal modification in Japanese.

This means that Japanese sentences are left-branching: the modifying material accumulates to the left of the noun it modifies, sometimes extending quite far. An English sentence builds to the right — "the person who was reading a book that I bought at the store where..." — while a Japanese sentence builds to the left:

わたしが 店で 買った 本を 読んでいた 人

The noun 人 is at the end. Everything to its left describes it. Learning to hold all that modifying information in your mind while waiting for the noun is one of the key reading skills for Japanese.

Verbs in relative clauses use plain form

The verb inside a relative clause is always in plain form, never in ます-form. This applies regardless of how polite the overall sentence is.

本を 読んでいる 人は 田中さんです。 "The person who is reading a book is Tanaka."

The verb 読んでいる inside the relative clause is in plain form, even though the sentence ends politely with です. This is a rule you learned in Stage 1 for all subordinate clauses: only the final verb of the sentence carries politeness marking. Verbs inside clauses are always plain.

7.3 Subject-Gap Relative Clauses

The simplest type of relative clause is one where the modified noun is the subject of the embedded clause. In other words, the gap is in the subject position.

Formation

Take a sentence where the subject is the noun you want to modify. Remove that subject. Place the remaining clause before the noun.

Original sentence: 女の人が ピアノを 弾いている。 ("A woman is playing the piano.")

To make "the woman who is playing the piano":

ピアノを 弾いている 女の人

The subject 女の人 has been removed from the clause and placed at the end as the modified noun. The clause ピアノを 弾いている now has a gap where the subject was.

Examples

ピアノを 弾いている 女の人は わたしの 姉です。 "The woman who is playing the piano is my older sister."

公園で 走っている 子どもたちは 元気ですね。 "The children who are running in the park are energetic, aren't they?"

毎日 日本語を 勉強している 学生は 上手に なります。 "Students who study Japanese every day will become good at it."

昨日 来なかった 人は だれですか。 "Who is the person who didn't come yesterday?"

眼鏡を かけている 男の人を 知っていますか。 "Do you know the man who is wearing glasses?"

Notice the last example: the relative clause 眼鏡を かけている modifies 男の人, and the whole noun phrase 眼鏡を かけている 男の人 functions as the object of 知っていますか. Relative clauses can modify nouns in any grammatical position — subject, object, or otherwise.

Tense in relative clauses

The verb inside the relative clause can be in any plain-form tense. Non-past describes a current or habitual action; past describes a completed action.

今 話している 人は 先生です。 "The person who is speaking right now is the teacher."

さっき 話した 人は 先生でした。 "The person who was speaking just now was the teacher."

毎朝 ジョギングを する 人は 健康です。 "People who jog every morning are healthy."

7.4 Object-Gap Relative Clauses

In an object-gap relative clause, the modified noun is the object of the embedded clause. The gap is where を would have been.

Formation

Original sentence: 友達が ケーキを 作った。 ("A friend made a cake.")

To make "the cake that my friend made":

友達が 作った ケーキ

The object ケーキ has been removed from the clause and placed at the end. Notice that the particle を disappears along with the noun — there is no dangling を left behind. The subject 友達 retains its が particle inside the relative clause.

The が/の alternation inside relative clauses

When a subject appears inside a relative clause, it is typically marked with が. However, in relative clauses, the subject particle が can optionally be replaced with の. This is a feature specific to subordinate clauses — it does not occur in main clauses.

友達が 作った ケーキ 友達の 作った ケーキ

Both mean "the cake that a friend made." The の version sounds slightly softer and is common in everyday speech and writing. This の is not the possessive の you know from Stage 1 — it is a subject marker that only appears inside relative clauses and certain other subordinate clauses.

Examples

母が 作った 料理は とても おいしいです。 "The food that my mother made is very delicious."

昨日 買った 本は おもしろかったです。 "The book I bought yesterday was interesting."

先生が 出した 宿題は むずかしいです。 "The homework that the teacher assigned is difficult."

田中さんが 撮った 写真を 見ましたか。 "Did you see the photos that Tanaka took?"

弟の 書いた 作文を 読みました。 "I read the essay that my younger brother wrote."

Notice in the last example the use of の instead of が for the subject inside the relative clause: 弟の 書いた 作文. This is the が/の alternation in action.

Sentences where the subject is not stated

In many relative clauses, the subject is simply omitted because it is obvious from context — usually because the subject is the speaker.

昨日 買った 本 "The book [I] bought yesterday."

先週 見た 映画 "The movie [I] saw last week."

There is no explicit subject in these clauses. The context makes it clear that "I" bought the book and "I" saw the movie. This kind of omission is extremely common in Japanese and is something you will encounter constantly.

7.5 Location-Gap and Time-Gap Relative Clauses

Relative clauses in Japanese are not limited to subject-gap and object-gap types. The modified noun can also be a location, a time, an instrument, a reason, or virtually anything else. English would need prepositions like "where," "when," or "with which" to express these, but Japanese simply gaps the noun and places the clause before it.

Location-gap

Original sentence: わたしは 去年 その 店に 行った。 ("I went to that restaurant last year.")

To make "the restaurant I went to last year":

去年 行った 店

The location 店 has been removed from the clause (along with its particle に), and the remaining clause is placed before it.

去年 行った 店は もう ありません。 "The restaurant I went to last year no longer exists."

いつも 昼ごはんを 食べる 店は 駅の 近くに あります。 "The restaurant where I always eat lunch is near the station."

友達が 住んでいる 町は きれいです。 "The town where my friend lives is beautiful."

日本語を 勉強した 学校は 東京に ありました。 "The school where I studied Japanese was in Tokyo."

Time-gap

Original sentence: わたしは 去年の 夏 日本に 行った。 ("I went to Japan in the summer of last year.")

To make "the summer when I went to Japan":

日本に 行った 夏

日本に 行った 夏は とても 暑かったです。 "The summer when I went to Japan was very hot."

大学に 入った 年に 友達が たくさん できました。 "In the year I entered university, I made many friends."

初めて 日本語を 聞いた 日を おぼえています。 "I remember the day I first heard Japanese."

Other types

The pattern extends to any relationship between the clause and the noun. Here are examples with less common gap types:

Instrument/means:

いつも 使っている ペンが なくなりました。 "The pen I always use has gone missing."

Companion:

一緒に 旅行した 友達に 電話しました。 "I called the friend I traveled with."

Reason:

会社を やめた 理由は なんですか。 "What is the reason you quit the company?"

In every case, the mechanism is the same: the noun is removed from the clause, and the clause is placed before the noun. The reader or listener determines the relationship from context and from the meaning of the noun itself. A word like 理由 ("reason") naturally suggests a causal relationship; a word like 店 ("shop") naturally suggests a locative one. Japanese relies on this semantic inference rather than on explicit markers like relative pronouns.

7.6 Stacking Relative Clauses

In natural Japanese, multiple relative clauses can modify different nouns in the same sentence, or even modify the same noun in layers. Parsing these structures requires careful attention to where each clause begins and ends.

Multiple relative clauses in one sentence

母が 作った 料理を 友達が 来た 日に 食べました。 "On the day my friend came, I ate the food my mother made."

This sentence contains two relative clauses:

1. 母が 作った modifies 料理 — "the food that my mother made"
2. 友達が 来た modifies 日 — "the day my friend came"

Each relative clause modifies its own noun. The overall sentence structure is: [modified noun phrase を] [modified noun phrase に] [main verb].

Nested relative clauses

A relative clause can itself contain a relative clause. This produces nested modification that can extend several layers deep.

友達が 作った ケーキを 食べた 人 "The person who ate the cake that a friend made."

Let us trace the structure:

• The innermost clause is 友達が 作った, which modifies ケーキ — "the cake that a friend made."
• The outer clause is [友達が 作った ケーキを] 食べた, which modifies 人 — "the person who ate [the cake that a friend made]."

Here is a more complex example:

わたしが 大学で 会った 先生が 書いた 本 "The book that the teacher I met at university wrote."

Breaking it down:

• わたしが 大学で 会った modifies 先生 — "the teacher I met at university"
• [わたしが 大学で 会った 先生が] 書いた modifies 本 — "the book that [the teacher I met at university] wrote"

Strategy for parsing complex relative clauses

When you encounter a long string of words before a noun, use this approach:

1. Find the noun at the end of the noun phrase.
2. Look for the verb immediately before that noun — this is the main verb of the relative clause.
3. Everything before that verb is either part of this relative clause or part of an inner relative clause.
4. Look for other nouns inside the clause that might themselves have modifying clauses before them.
5. Work from the inside out: resolve the innermost relative clause first, then use it as part of the next layer.

This takes practice. The more Japanese you read, the more naturally you will recognize where relative clauses begin and end. The key signal is always the same: a verb in plain form followed by a noun, with no particle between them, almost always indicates a relative clause.

A longer example

先週 東京で 買った 本を 読んでいる 学生に 昨日 会った 先生が 今 話しています。 "The teacher who yesterday met the student who is reading the book I bought in Tokyo last week is speaking now."

This is a grammatical (if somewhat dense) Japanese sentence with three layers of relative clause. In real life, sentences this deeply nested are uncommon in speech but do appear in writing. The important thing is not to produce such sentences, but to be able to parse them when you encounter them.

7.7 Reading Passage

日本語の クラス

わたしの 日本語の クラスには いろいろな 人が います。毎日 一番 早く 来る 人は キムさんです。キムさんは いつも 先生が 出した 宿題を 全部 やっています。

クラスの 中で 一番 日本語が 上手な 人は リンさんです。リンさんは 子どもの 時 日本に 住んでいた ことが あるから、日本語が よく わかります。

わたしの 隣に すわっている 人は マリアさんです。マリアさんは 先月 日本に 旅行した 時に 買った 本を 時々 クラスに 持って来ます。日本の 店で 見つけた まんがだそうです。

先週 新しく 入った 学生が 二人 います。まだ 名前を おぼえていない 人も いますが、みんな 一緒に がんばっています。

先生が いつも 言っている ことが あります。「毎日 少しずつ 勉強する 人が 上手に なります」。わたしも そうだと 思います。

Translation

There are various people in my Japanese class. The person who arrives earliest every day is Kim. Kim always completes all the homework that the teacher assigned.

The person in the class who is best at Japanese is Lin. Because Lin lived in Japan as a child, Lin understands Japanese well.

The person sitting next to me is Maria. Maria sometimes brings to class a book that she bought when she traveled to Japan last month. Apparently it is manga that she found at a store in Japan.

There are two students who newly joined last week. There are also people whose names I have not yet memorized, but we are all doing our best together.

There is something the teacher always says: "People who study a little every day will become good at it." I think so too.

7.8 Vocabulary List