Editing Esperanto grammar (section)

===Attributive phrases and clauses===
In the sentence above, ''la hundo ĉasis la katon, kiu estis en la ĝardeno'' 'the dog chased the cat, which was in the garden', the [[relative pronoun]] ''kiu'' 'which' is restricted to a position ''after'' the noun 'cat'. In general, [[relative clause]]s and attributive prepositional phrases follow the noun they modify.

[[Attributive]] prepositional phrases, which are dependent on nouns, include genitives (''la libro de Johano'' 'John's book') as well as ''la kato en la ĝardeno'' 'the cat in the garden' in the example above. Their order cannot be reversed: neither ''*la de Johano libro'' nor ''*la en la ĝardeno kato'' is possible. This behavior is more restrictive than prepositional phrases which are dependent on verbs, and which can be moved around: both ''ĉasis en la ĝardeno'' and ''en la ĝardeno ĉasis'' are acceptable for 'chased in the garden'.

Relative clauses are similar, in that they are attributive and are subject to the same word-order constraint, except that rather than being linked by a preposition, the two elements are linked by a [[relative pronoun]] such as ''kiu'' 'which':
:''fuĝis la kato, kiun ĝi ĉasis'' 'the cat which it chased fled'
:''mi vidis la hundon, kiu ĉasis la katon'' 'I saw the dog which chased the cat'
Note that the noun and its adjacent relative pronoun do not agree in case. Rather, their cases depend on their relationships with their respective verbs.<ref>This is parallel to the rather archaic distinction in English between 'who' and 'whom'. Other sequences of case are possible, though with different readings: ''fuĝis la hundo, kiu ĉasis ĝin'' 'the dog which chased it fled'; ''mi vidis la katon, kiun la hundo ĉasis'' 'I saw the cat, which the dog chased'.</ref> However, they do agree in number:
:''fuĝis la kato'''j''', kiu'''j'''n ĝi ĉasis'' 'the cat'''s''' which it chased fled'

Other word orders are possible, as long as the relative pronoun remains adjacent to the noun it depends on:
:''fuĝis la kato, kiun ĉasis ĝi'' 'the cat which it chased fled'
:''vidis mi la hundon, kiu la katon ĉasis'' 'I saw the dog which chased the cat'