English naturally leaves a preposition at the end of a question or relative clause: Who are you going with? The report we talked about. Catalan normally cannot leave that relational word without an overt complement. The preposition travels to the front with the interrogative or relative phrase: Amb qui hi vas? L'informe de què parlàvem. Linguists call this joint movement pied-piping.
English also permits the more formal With whom are you going? Catalan's fronted pattern is not an equally formal alternative; it is the ordinary grammar in every register. When speakers want to avoid a heavy fronted relative in conversation, they usually reshape the sentence, use on, or make the referent a detached topic resumed by a weak pronoun. They do not simply park amb, de, en or per at the end.
Pied-piping at a glance
| Context | English pattern | Natural Catalan pattern |
|---|---|---|
| Question about a person | Who did you speak to? | Amb qui vas parlar? |
| Question about a thing | What does it depend on? | De què depèn? |
| Relative, person | the colleague I work with | la companya amb qui treballo |
| Relative, thing | the issue on which we disagree | la qüestió en què discrepem |
| Place relation | the path we came along | el camí per on hem vingut |
The fronted preposition reveals the dependency before the listener reaches the verb. De què…? announces a de-complement; amb qui…? announces company or another amb relation. English can postpone that information until the last word.
Direct and embedded questions
With people, use preposition + qui. With things or abstract content, use preposition + què. The grave accent in què marks a stressed interrogative form.
Amb qui has quedat per preparar la presentació de demà?
Who have you arranged to meet to prepare tomorrow's presentation?
De què es queixaven els veïns quan has arribat?
What were the residents complaining about when you arrived?
Per a qui és el paquet que han deixat a recepció?
Who is the parcel they left at reception for?
An embedded question follows exactly the same rule. The surrounding clause does not license English order.
Encara no sabem amb quin proveïdor va dir la directora que l'equip negociaria el contracte.
We still don't know which supplier the director said the team would negotiate the contract with.
Here amb quin proveïdor belongs semantically with negociaria, even though va dir la directora que intervenes. The whole prepositional phrase moves together. Copying English order would strand amb after negociaria and produce an un-Catalan dependency.
The choice of preposition still matters. Per qui ho fas? can ask on whose account or because of whom; Per a qui ho fas? asks who the intended beneficiary is in varieties that distinguish per/per a. Pied-piping preserves the chosen relation; it does not choose it for you.
Relative clauses with people
For a human antecedent, preposition + qui is compact and neutral: la metgessa amb qui he parlat, l'autor de qui prové la citació. Preposition + article + qual is a more explicit alternative and is especially useful when the antecedent might otherwise be unclear.
La tècnica amb qui vam revisar els plànols tornarà dijous al matí.
The technician we reviewed the plans with will return Thursday morning.
El professor del qual et vaig parlar coordina ara el programa d'intercanvi.
The professor I told you about now coordinates the exchange program. (formal)
The simple relative que cannot carry a stranded preposition in standard Catalan. La tècnica que vam revisar els plànols amb copies the English surface order. Nor can the preposition simply disappear if the verb needs it: la tècnica que vam parlar does not preserve parlar amb.
Relative clauses with things
With nonhuman antecedents after short prepositions, què is frequent: l'eina amb què ho va obrir, el tema de què parlàvem, la proposta a què s'oposa. The inflected el qual/la qual/els quals/les quals offers an alternative and agrees with the antecedent.
No trobo l'adaptador amb què connectàvem el projector antic.
I can't find the adapter we used to connect the old projector with.
Han ajornat el debat per al qual havíem preparat totes les intervencions.
They have postponed the debate for which we had prepared all the speeches. (formal)
With a tonic preposition or a multiword locution, the qual series is normally the safest formal choice: la norma segons la qual, l'acord en virtut del qual, el mur darrere del qual. This also keeps the internal structure of a complex preposition visible.
L'acord en virtut del qual rebran la subvenció caduca a final d'any.
The agreement under which they will receive the grant expires at the end of the year. (formal/legal)
On can absorb a place relation
For spatial antecedents, on often produces the lightest clause: el poble on viu, la sala on ens reunim. Add a preposition when the path, source, or direction matters: d'on, per on, fins on.
Aquest és el carrer per on passa l'autobús nocturn.
This is the street the night bus runs along.
Des del mirador es veu la vall d'on baixa aquesta boira tan espessa.
From the viewpoint you can see the valley this thick fog comes down from.
Compare la casa on viu with la casa de què parla. The first has a locative relation that on can encode. The second is the selected de-complement of parlar de, so it requires de què/de la qual. Treating every English final preposition as a location and replacing it with on loses meaning.
Natural conversational repairs
Careful pied-piping can become long: la decisió respecte de la qual encara no hi ha acord. Conversation often chooses a simpler verb or divides the information into two clauses. A detached topic with a resumptive weak pronoun is also natural Catalan:
I aquesta proposta, hi confies de debò?
And this proposal—do you really trust it? (informal topic + resumptive hi)
Aquell informe? En vam parlar ahir i encara no ens convenç.
That report? We talked about it yesterday and it still doesn't convince us. (informal)
These are not examples of preposition stranding. Hi resumes an en-type complement, and en resumes a de-complement; the detached noun phrase is a discourse topic outside the clause. This is a useful repair when a spontaneous speaker has already named the referent.
A resumptive colloquial relative such as la proposta que hi confio is heard in informal speech but is outside the preferred formal pattern. Use la proposta en què confio or recast it. Regional varieties differ in the frequency of such resumptives, but Central, Valencian, Balearic, Northwestern, Northern, and Alguerese standards all provide pied-piping as the common edited solution.
Information structure and scope
Fronting the whole prepositional phrase preserves its unity, but focus particles can still alter scope:
Amb qui va parlar només la directora després de la sessió?
Who did only the director speak with after the session? — només restricts the subject.
Només amb la directora va parlar el síndic després de la sessió.
The ombudsman spoke only with the director after the session. — només restricts the prepositional complement.
In the first question, amb qui is fronted because it is interrogative, while només la directora forms the narrow subject focus. In the second, només amb la directora is a fronted focus phrase. Catalan uses adjacency and word order to show which constituent només restricts; leaving amb at the end would obscure the phrase boundary.
A natural dialogue
—De quin pressupost parlàveu quan he entrat? —Del que prepara la Marta, no del que ja vam aprovar al juny.
‘Which budget were you talking about when I came in?’ ‘The one Marta is preparing, not the one we already approved in June.’
The question fronts de quin pressupost. The short answer keeps de in del que because it stands for del pressupost que…; it is not the same structure as a stranded English preposition.
Short correction task
Repair these English-shaped sentences: 1) Qui vas dinar amb? 2) El programa que participo en acaba al març. 3) No recordo què depenia la data de.
Amb qui vas dinar després de la conferència?
Who did you have lunch with after the conference?
El programa en què participo acaba al març de l'any vinent.
The program I participate in ends next March.
No recordo de què depenia la data de publicació.
I don't remember what the publication date depended on.
Common Mistakes
❌ Què estàs pensant en?
Incorrect — en is stranded at the end in imitation of English.
✅ En què estàs pensant mentre tothom et parla?
What are you thinking about while everyone is talking to you?
❌ La companya que treballo amb viu a Mataró.
Incorrect — amb must accompany the relative phrase to the front.
✅ La companya amb qui treballo viu a Mataró des de fa poc.
The colleague I work with has only been living in Mataró for a short time.
❌ L'assumpte que discutíem sobre ja està resolt.
Incorrect — Catalan does not leave sobre after the verb.
✅ L'assumpte sobre el qual discutíem ja ha quedat resolt.
The matter we were arguing about has now been resolved. (formal)
❌ El projecte que confio començarà al setembre.
Incorrect — deleting en erases the relation selected by confiar.
✅ El projecte en què confio començarà finalment al setembre.
The project I believe in will finally begin in September.
The dependable workflow is to recover the Catalan relation first—parlar de, confiar en, treballar amb, passar per—and front that preposition with its interrogative or relative complement. The relative pronouns after prepositions page compares qui, què and el qual in detail. When the result feels heavy, recast the clause; do not reproduce English stranding.
Key Takeaways
- Catalan normally fronts a preposition together with its interrogative or relative complement.
- Use preposition + qui for people and preposition + què/el qual for things, according to context and register.
- On can encode a place relation; it cannot replace the selected preposition of every verb.
- Detached topics resumed by en/hi are conversational repairs, not stranded prepositions.
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Start learning Catalan →Related Topics
- Prepositional Relatives with Què, Qui, and El QualB1 — Choose què, qui, or the agreeing forms of el qual after Catalan prepositions and avoid stranded or resumptive alternatives.
- Interrogative PronounsB1 — How qui, què, quin, quant, and on ask direct and embedded questions in contemporary Catalan.
- Questions with PrepositionsA2 — How Catalan keeps required prepositions before qui, què, quin, and on in questions, including purpose, destination, source, and verb government.
- Wh-Movement and ExtractionC2 — Trace Catalan wh-dependencies across clauses, recognize island constraints, and distinguish grammatical complexity from processing difficulty.
- Relative-Clause ErrorsB2 — Diagnose and repair stranded prepositions, possessive calques, resumptive doubling, and comma errors in Catalan relative clauses.