The restrictive attributive clause is used to restrict the meaning of the antecedent it modifies. lt has three characteristics: (1) It is placed after the antecedent; (2) Generally there is no comma to separate the clause from the antecedent it modifies; (3) The clause forms an indispensable part of the sentence it belongs to in meaning. lf you should drop the attributive clause, the sentence might change its meaning or even become senseless, e.g.

1. This is a book (that) I like best.

2. This is the book (that) I like best.

Without the attributive clause, the first sentence can still stand as an independent simple sentence, but there is a great change in meaning. As for the second, it will no more make sense for none could understand what you mean by saying "This is the book" without any proper context or conversational situation.

In translating sentences of this kind, generally speaking, we should place the attributives before the words they modify in Chinese. Here I call simply attributives what are corresponding to attributive clauses in English for in Chinese such modifiers are not necessarily in the form of clauses all the time. Sometimes, they may be either in the form of phrases or in the form of words. This applies to all the following Chinese sentences.

1. This is the place where the worhers' and peasents' Red Army made the crossing in 1934.

這就是工農(nóng)紅軍1934年渡江的地方。

2. A. Do you know the man who spoke to your father yesterday?

你認(rèn)識(shí)昨天對(duì)你父親講話的那個(gè)人嗎？

B. No, I don't know who he is.

不，我不曉得他是誰(shuí)。

3. Here is the man you are looking for.

你正在尋找的那個(gè)人就在這兒。

4. Ererything he said seemed quite resonable.

他說(shuō)的話似乎都很有道理。

5. That is the first book of the kind I have ener corne across.

這是我碰見(jiàn)的第一本這樣的書(shū)。