Learn English – What do you call “that” or “where”

grammarpronounssingle-word-requests

For words that sit as placeholders for other words (and introduce subordinate clauses), is there a name?

For example,

The quick brown fox that jumped over the lazy dog.

The man who killed the cyclops.

What are these words called? (aside from "pronoun" or "demonstrative pronoun" for the case of terms like this and that [depending on usage])

They basically function as placeholders for other clauses or nouns.

Best Answer

It could be a relative pronoun if you consider the first part as a clause without the "This is":

[This is] The quick brown fox that jumped over the lazy dog.
[This is] The man who killed the cyclops.

All the other grammatical conjunctions (Coordinating conjunctions, Correlative conjunctions or Subordinating conjunctions) don't include 'who' or 'that'.

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