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Voici l'étagère sur laquelle je pose beaucoup de livres.

Voici l'étagère sur laquelle je pose beaucoup de livres.
Here is the shelf on which I put a lot of books.
From Lesson 166:Relative pronouns with prepositions (lequel)·French

Questions & Answers about Voici l'étagère sur laquelle je pose beaucoup de livres.

Why do we use laquelle here instead of the standard lequel?
The relative pronoun has to match the gender and number of the noun it refers back to. Here, it refers to l'étagère (the shelf), which is feminine singular. Therefore, the masculine lequel changes to the feminine laquelle.
In English, I can just say "the shelf I put books on." Can I do that in French and put sur at the end?
No, French grammar does not allow "dangling prepositions" at the end of a sentence. You must keep the preposition and its pronoun together. You always have to use the structure "on which" (sur laquelle), "with which" (avec lequel), etc.
I usually use the verb mettre for "to put." Could I say je mets instead of je pose?
Yes, je mets would be perfectly correct and natural! However, poser specifically means "to place" or "to set down" (usually on a surface). Using poser here just paints a slightly more precise picture of setting the books down onto the shelf.
Since livres is plural, shouldn't it be beaucoup des livres?
This is a very common trap! Adverbs of quantity—like beaucoup (a lot), trop (too much/many), or un peu (a little)—are almost always followed by just de or d', even if the following noun is plural. You would only use des here if you meant a lot of the specific books we just talked about.

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