Extraposed Relative Clauses

In the textbook version of a relative clause, the modifier sits snugly against the noun it describes: die man wat my soek (the man who is looking for me). Real Afrikaans, especially spoken Afrikaans, constantly breaks that bond. The relative clause gets ripped off its head noun and shoved all the way to the end of the sentence, landing after the clause-final verb where you would least expect it. This page is about that move — extraposition — and the gap it opens between a noun and the clause that belongs to it. We assume you already know how the basic relative clause is built; here we deal only with what happens when it travels.

What extraposition looks like

Compare two ways of saying the same thing. First, the tidy adjacent version:

That is grammatical, but it feels heavy and a little stilted, because the whole relative clause wat jou soek is wedged between the auxiliary het and the participle gekom, swelling the verb bracket. Afrikaans much prefers to evacuate the relative clause to the right edge:

Now the verb bracket het ... gekom is left clean and tight, and the relative clause wat jou soek trails along behind it. The head noun 'n man and its modifier wat jou soek are no longer touching — there is a verb sitting between them. This second version is the one a native speaker will almost always reach for.

In each case, the relative clause has been extraposed: lifted out of its natural slot next to the noun and re-attached at the far right of the sentence.

Why it happens: end-weight and the verb bracket

There are two forces pushing the relative clause rightward, and they reinforce each other.

The first is the verb bracket. Afrikaans wraps the core of a main clause inside a frame — finite verb near the front, the rest of the verbal material (participle, infinitive, separable prefix) at the end (see clause-final verbs). Anything stuffed inside that frame has to be processed before the listener gets to the closing verb. A short adjective or object is fine in there. A whole relative clause is a lot to hold in suspension. Extraposing it lets the listener close the verb bracket quickly and then receive the extra detail.

The second force is end-weight, a tendency shared by many languages but unusually strong in Afrikaans: heavy, information-rich material gravitates to the end of the sentence. A relative clause is heavy almost by definition — it is a clause. So it drifts to where heavy things belong.

This is why extraposition is near-obligatory with long or complex relatives and merely preferred with short ones. A two-word relative can survive inside the bracket; a ten-word one practically cannot.

Bridging the gap: finding the antecedent

For an English speaker this is the genuinely hard part, and it deserves honesty: once the relative clause has moved, you have to reach back across the verb to find its head noun. There is no logical shortcut — you locate the antecedent by meaning and by number, not by adjacency.

Take Daar het 'n man gekom wat jou soek. The clause wat jou soek describes 'n man, even though gekom sits between them. Nothing else in the sentence could be its head — daar is not a person, and there is only one noun phrase available. Afrikaans relies on exactly this: the extraposed relative attaches to the most recent suitable noun phrase to its left, skipping over the verb.

When two candidate nouns compete, agreement of sense decides. Consider:

Here wat gister aangekom het (that arrived yesterday) sensibly modifies die brief (the letter), not my broer — a letter arrives, a brother does not arrive in the relevant reading. The listener resolves the gap by plausibility. This ambiguity is the price of extraposition, and good speakers avoid it by extraposing only when the antecedent is unmistakable. When two nouns could each take the clause, keep it adjacent instead.

Extraposition is everywhere in speech

This is not an exotic, literary device. Extraposed relatives are the default in conversation, which is precisely why learners who insist on the textbook adjacent order end up sounding bookish. The presentative construction with daar ("there...") almost forces extraposition:

In every one of these, jamming the relative clause back next to its noun (Daar is mense wat dit nooit sal verstaan nie is already adjacent here, but Daar het iets wat ek nie kan verduidelik nie gebeur would be the un-extraposed version) produces a sentence that is technically possible yet noticeably clumsy. The extraposed form is the living one.

How this differs from English

English extraposes relative clauses too — A man came who was looking for you is perfectly grammatical — but it is marked and slightly formal in English, something you might write but rarely say. In Afrikaans the same operation is unmarked and conversational: it is the ordinary way, not the special way. So the instinct an English speaker imports — "keep the relative clause next to its noun, extraposing only for stylistic effect" — is exactly backwards for Afrikaans.

The deeper reason is structural. English keeps the verb and object together, so there is rarely a verb sitting between a noun and a trailing clause to begin with. Afrikaans, with its closing verb bracket, creates a natural landing spot at the right edge — past the verb — and the language exploits it relentlessly. Learning to hear the gap, and to step over the verb to find the antecedent, is one of the last real hurdles in Afrikaans word order. It connects directly to the broader topic of long-distance dependencies.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• An Afrikaans relative clause is routinely extraposed — separated from its head noun and placed after the clause-final verb: Daar het 'n man gekom wat jou soek.
• The drivers are the verb bracket (don't clog it) and end-weight (heavy clauses go right). The longer the relative, the more obligatory the move.
• To parse it, read to the end, find the relative pronoun, and bridge back over the verb to the nearest noun that makes sense — resolve ambiguity by plausibility, not adjacency.
• Unlike English, extraposition here is unmarked and conversational, not a stylistic flourish. Keeping every relative glued to its noun is what makes a learner sound stiff.
• When two nouns could each be the head, keep the clause adjacent instead — extrapose only when the antecedent is unmistakable. For the general mechanism see extraposition.