Question

Where is the child _____ parents have come to school?
A) who
B) whose
C) which

Answer 1

Hint: The above question is asking us to use conjunction or a relative pronoun to fill in the space provided. ‘Who’, ‘whose’ and ‘which’ are subordinating conjunctions as well as relative pronouns. Both the categories are either used to introduce an adverb clause or adjective clause or relative clause which helps to join two or more questions together.

Complete answer:
A subordinating conjunction connects a noun clause or an adverb clause to some other clause. A relative pronoun is a word that introduces a dependent or relative clause and joins it to an independent clause.
Option A) who: The above option is incorrect as the word that used to be filled in the space in the given sentence denote possession, but ‘who’ stands for the person itself.
Option B) whose: The above option is correct as the word that used to be filled in the space in the given sentence denote possession and the possessive relative pronoun ‘whose’ denotes it (usually possession here refers to persons and occasionally for some animal and some inanimate things too). Here, ‘whose’ refers to the child’s parents who had come to the school.
Option C) which: The above option is incorrect as the word that used to be filled in the space in the given sentence, but ‘which’ stands for animal or inanimate things or a previous statement.

Therefore the correct answer is option ‘B’.

Note: The points to be remembered regarding relative pronouns and subordinating conjunctions usage are:
- ‘That’ introduces a restrictive clause, and ‘which’ introduces a nonrestrictive clause.
- When referring to a person, one must use Who, Whom, Whose, whoever and Whomever.
- When referring to a thing, place, or idea, one must use Which, That, What, Whatever, and Whichever
- Use ‘who’ when referring to the subject of a sentence and ‘whom’ when referring to the object of a sentence.
- Use ‘whoever’ when the sentence requires a subject pronoun as the answer and’ whomever’ when the sentence requires an object pronoun as the answer.
- The subordinating conjunction doesn't need to be placed in the middle of the sentence. But it has to be part of the dependent clause, but the dependent clause can come before the independent clause.