# EN: the book (that) you gave me - omission of the relative pronoun



## makrich

Hello,

Est-ce que l'élision [du pronom relatif] "that" dans une phrase comme "the book you gave me" est une forme "correcte"? Ou est-ce réservé au langage oral? Doit-on forcément utiliser [le pronom relatif] dans un rapport ou un article?

merci d'avance.
Bien cordialement

Madeleine

*Note des modérateurs :*  Plusieurs fils ont été fusionnés pour créer celui-ci. Voir aussi le fil sur l'omission de la conjonction _that_ : EN: I think/know (that) + subordinate clause - omission of the conjunction.


----------



## Ashmada

Je suis presque certain que c'est parfaitement correct d'éluder le "that" même dans un contexte plus littéraire, mais un natif sera plus à même de lever les doutes subsistants.


----------



## moustic

Les deux phrases sont correctes.


----------



## All in One

On trouve ceci sur _TheFreeDictionary_, déf. de _that _:


> *Usage Note:* [...]_ That_ is often omitted in a relative clause when the subject of  the clause is different from the word that the clause refers to. Thus,  we may say either _the book that I was reading_ or _the book I was reading._ In addition, _that_ is commonly omitted before other kinds of subordinate clauses, as in _I think we should try again_ where _that_ would precede _we._ These constructions omitting _that_ are entirely idiomatic, even in more formal contexts.


----------



## makrich

Merci à tous pour vos réponses. C'est ce que je fais spontanément (omettre "that"), mais j'ai utilisé Google traduction pour retraduire en français ce que j'écris en anglais - ça me permet parfois de voir certaines fautes - et le résultat a jeté le doute dans mon esprit.


----------



## Keith Bradford

Google translate has no intelligence.  It's just a clockwork dictionary, so you can't expect it to tell you these things.


----------



## acbltd

Aux États-Unis, il n'y a pas de différence. Vous pouvez dire, "The book you gave me." Ça marche. "The book that you gave me" est un peu plus formel, mais ce n'est pas nécessaire quand on écrit ou quand on parle.


----------



## poubcool

Donc dans le doute met _that_ partout


----------



## Martyn94

poubcool said:


> Donc dans le doute met _that_ partout



Not at all. acbltd said that the form with "that" is a bit more formal. But I doubt whether either of us could "come up with"(equally informal but almost always correct) a context where "the book you gave me" requires such a formal expression. Dropping the "that" is always OK and almost always preferable; putting it in is almost always stilted to the point of being unidiomatic.


----------



## uptown

Here's my rule:

If you're writing something that has a _minimum_ word count, then leave the that's in place to help you get there. If you're writing something with a maximum word count, leave them out to keep from exceeding it.


----------



## Fred_C

Notez cependant que si le pronom «that» est *sujet* de la relative, on ne peut pas l’omettre. Cela n’est possible que s’il est objet.

Exemple : essayer d’enlever «that» dans «the little boy that cried wolf».


----------



## lucas-sp

[…]

Otherwise, I totally agree with Fred - you can take out "whom," but not "who"; you can take out an object "that," but not a subject "that."

[…]

*Moderator note:* The discussion about _who_ vs. _that_ is off-topic and has been moved here.


----------



## Monsieur Leland

Hello,

Is it compulsory to add "that" in a middle of a subordinate sentence? For example:

The most important information* that *mankind has ever known
or
The most important information mankind has ever known

Thanks.


----------



## Maître Capello

Bonjour,

Non, le pronom relatif objet direct (donc équivalent en français à _que_ et non _qui_) n'est pas obligatoire.


----------



## Monsieur Leland

Quelle version sonne le plus naturel à l'oral? Avec ou sans that?


----------



## Maître Capello

Cela dépend beaucoup du contexte, mais le pronom relatif est très souvent omis à l'oral.


----------



## Kelly B

D'accord. A l'orale j'aurais une légère tendance à l'omettre (je pourrais également dire que je n'aurais qu'une légère tendance etc. )


----------



## Isabelle Le Martret

Bonjour, je me permets de reprendre cette conversation car je suis en train de lire le dernier livre de Kazuo Ishiguro "The Buried Giant", et je trouve sans arrêt des phrases comme celles-ci  : "was there something that stranger said just now got you thinking of it ?",  "I've asked around and there's no one here remembers him"...Est-ce que ces omissions des pronoms relatifs vous semblent naturelles ?


----------



## Enquiring Mind

Hi ILM, it should be "was there something that stranger said just now *that* got you thinking of it ?" because "something that stranger said" is the subject, not the object, of the verb "got you thinking". The same with "there's no one here *that/who* remembers him". Although Ishiguro is British-based, maybe the character in the book is American. It comes across to me as colloquial AE.


----------



## moustic

I'm not keen on either of these sentences. I would have used "that" in the first sentence and "who" in the second.


----------



## Isabelle Le Martret

Well, that's my point exactly. The characters are not American, they're Britons; the story takes place in Anglo-Saxon Britain, circa 600 I should say.


----------



## Enquiring Mind

That's helpful context. But no-one knows how they spoke in 600.


----------



## lisettelit

Omissions like "there's no one here [that] remembers him" are limited to very informal speech. It's often used in books to make certain characters sound like they're rural or less educated. Sometimes "as" or "what" is substituted for "that" - "there's no one here as remembers him"/"there's no one here what remembers him." This is definitely not correct English, but there are definitely groups of people who talk this way in both America and Britain!


----------

