Abstract

This article is aimed at exploring learners’ errors in English relative clause (ERC) learning, with an emphasis on the syntactic problems confronting Thai EFL students. A collection of common types of ERC errors is presented with real examples from learner language. The errors occurring with high frequency primarily concern pronoun retention, incorrect use of “where” as a relative pronoun, null-prep constructions, misuse of the genitive RC marker, and non-adjacency of a RC to its head. Some other problems occur, such as “that” as a RC marker and absence of commas in non-restrictive RCs, which do not seriously hamper learners’ meaning expression. The least problematic seems to be the inappropriate use of “that” in place of “where,” which may be caused by learners’ perception of “that” as a handy relative marker.