Lesson 41: Advanced Relative Pronouns

Part 1: Lequel — the relative pronoun after prepositions

English collapses everything into one word: which. French splits which by gender and number, and the form is lequel.

	masculine	feminine
sg.	lequel	laquelle
pl.	lesquels	lesquelles

Use it after prepositions like avec, dans, sur, pour, sans, par, sous, chez, parmi, vers.

• L'outil avec lequel je travaille est cassé. — The tool with which I work is broken.
• La raison pour laquelle il est parti reste mystérieuse. — The reason for which he left is still a mystery.
• Les principes sur lesquels repose cette théorie sont contestés. — The principles on which this theory rests are disputed.
• Les conditions sans lesquelles rien n'est possible. — The conditions without which nothing is possible.

English-speaker note. Spoken English usually drops the pronoun and dangles the preposition: the tool I work with, the reason he left. French cannot do that. You must keep the pronoun, and the preposition must sit in front of it. The book I'm talking about → Le livre dont je parle, never Le livre je parle de.

For people: qui or lequel?

After a preposition, when the antecedent is a person, French prefers qui. Lequel is also possible but is more formal and is used mostly to avoid ambiguity.

• L'homme avec qui je parle (normal) / L'homme avec lequel je parle (formal)
• La femme pour qui je travaille / …pour laquelle je travaille

Trap! After parmi (among) and entre (between), the form is always lesquels / lesquelles, even for people: les amis parmi lesquels je vis — the friends among whom I live. Never parmi qui.

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Part 2: Contractions — auquel, duquel

Lequel contracts with the prepositions à and de, exactly the way the article le/les does (à + le = au, de + les = des). The feminine laquelle stays uncontracted.

With à (after verbs like penser à, s'intéresser à, participer à, répondre à, s'opposer à):

	masculine	feminine
sg.	auquel (à + lequel)	à laquelle (no contraction)
pl.	auxquels (à + lesquels)	auxquelles (à + lesquelles)

• Le projet auquel je participe. — The project in which I'm taking part.
• La question à laquelle je pense. — The question I'm thinking about.
• Les sujets auxquels il s'intéresse. — The topics he's interested in.
• Les décisions auxquelles il s'oppose. — The decisions he opposes.

With de — only inside compound prepositions

For a plain de, French uses dont (from Lesson 30). But duquel / de laquelle / desquels / desquelles are mandatory after a compound preposition that ends in de: à côté de, près de, au milieu de, au cours de, lors de, en face de, au-dessus de, au-dessous de, au sujet de, à cause de, au pied de, au centre de, autour de.

	masculine	feminine
sg.	duquel (de + lequel)	de laquelle (no contraction)
pl.	desquels (de + lesquels)	desquelles (de + lesquelles)

• La maison à côté de laquelle j'habite. — The house next to which I live. (NOT dont!)
• Le congrès au cours duquel il a parlé. — The conference during which he spoke.
• Les arbres au pied desquels nous nous sommes assis. — The trees at the foot of which we sat down.
• La ville au centre de laquelle se dresse une cathédrale. — The city at the centre of which stands a cathedral.

The dont vs duquel rule, in one line:

• simple de (parler de, avoir besoin de, dépendre de) → dont
• compound …de (à côté de, au cours de, lors de) → duquel / de laquelle

Compare: le livre dont je parle (parler de) vs le livre à côté duquel est la lampe (à côté de).

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Part 3: Ce qui / ce que / ce dont / ce à quoi

These are the headless relative pronouns: they don't refer back to a specific noun, they refer to an idea, an action, a whole situation. In English they translate as "what" (in the sense of "the thing which") or "that which".

Form	Role in the relative clause	English equivalent
ce qui	subject	what (does something)
ce que	direct object	what (I do, want, say)
ce dont	object of preposition de	what (I need, talk about)
ce à quoi	object of preposition à	what (I think about, care about)

Contrast all four side by side:

• Ce qui me plaît, c'est la musique. — What I like is music. (plaire needs a subject → ce qui is the subject)
• Ce que je veux, c'est partir. — What I want is to leave. (vouloir needs a direct object → ce que)
• Ce dont j'ai besoin, c'est du calme. — What I need is quiet. (avoir besoin de* → ce dont)
• Ce à quoi je pense, c'est l'avenir. — What I'm thinking about is the future. (penser à → ce à quoi)

How to pick the right one. Look at the verb in the relative clause and ask what's missing:

• missing subject → ce qui
• missing direct object → ce que
• verb governs through de (parler de, avoir besoin de, se souvenir de, s'occuper de, rêver de) → ce dont
• verb governs through à (penser à, s'intéresser à, tenir à, s'attendre à, faire attention à) → ce à quoi

After tout — "everything that…"

• Tout ce qui brille n'est pas or. — All that glitters is not gold. (Yes, the proverb is identical.)
• Je te dirai tout ce que je sais. — I'll tell you everything (that) I know.
• Voici tout ce dont nous disposons. — Here is everything (that) we have at our disposal. (disposer de)
• Tout ce à quoi je tiens, c'est ma famille. — Everything I care about is my family. (tenir à)

Why this matters. English routinely uses bare "what" and "everything" without thinking. French forces you to mark the grammatical role of that "what" — subject, object, à-object, or de-object — every single time. Native English speakers tend to over-use ce que (since it feels most like English "what") and miss ce dont and ce à quoi when the verb takes a preposition.

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Part 4: Quoi after a preposition (no antecedent)

When there's no noun antecedent at all and only a preposition, the form is quoi:

• Je ne sais pas à quoi tu penses. — I don't know what you're thinking about.
• Voilà de quoi je voulais parler. — That's what I wanted to talk about.
• Il n'y a pas de quoi s'inquiéter. — There's nothing to worry about. (lit. "there isn't (the thing) about which to worry")
• Sur quoi te bases-tu ? — What are you basing yourself on?

Compare with-antecedent vs without:

With antecedent (a noun)	Without antecedent (an idea)
Le problème auquel je pense.	Ce à quoi je pense.
Le sujet dont je parle.	Ce dont je parle.
L'outil avec lequel je travaille.	Voici avec quoi je travaille. (rare)

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Part 5: Non-restrictive clauses and lequel for clarity

French, like English, distinguishes two kinds of relative clauses.

1. Restrictive (defining) — no commas, narrows the antecedent:

• Les étudiants qui travaillent réussiront. — The students who work (= only those) will pass.

2. Non-restrictive (descriptive) — with commas, adds information about the whole set:

• Les étudiants, qui travaillent, réussiront. — The students, who incidentally work, will pass (= all of them work).

(Same comma logic as English: the students who work vs the students, who work,.)

Lequel instead of qui/que for disambiguation

In formal writing, lequel sometimes replaces qui or que when you need to make absolutely clear which antecedent the clause attaches to — especially in a long noun phrase where two candidates compete:

• La sœur de mon collègue, laquelle habite à Lyon, m'a écrit. — My colleague's sister, who (specifically she, not he) lives in Lyon, wrote to me.

Here a plain qui would be ambiguous: is it the sister or the colleague who lives in Lyon? Laquelle — feminine — locks the antecedent to la sœur. This is a hallmark of careful written French.

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Part 6: The master table — which pronoun do I pick?

Role in the clause	Antecedent = thing	Antecedent = person	No antecedent (idea)
subject	qui	qui	ce qui
direct object	que	que	ce que
object of de	dont	dont	ce dont
object of à	auquel	à qui	ce à quoi
object of another preposition	prep + lequel	prep + qui	prep + quoi
place / time	où	—	—
compound preposition in de	duquel / de laquelle	de qui / duquel	—

Print this table, tape it next to your screen, and decide every relative clause by walking through three questions: (1) What's the antecedent — thing, person, or idea? (2) What role does the relative pronoun play in the clause that follows? (3) Is there a preposition, and if so, plain or compound?

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