The aim of this article is to focus on a comparative study of the relative clause in the four major language groups of South Africa which will be represented here by four individual languages, i.e. isiXhosa, Xitsonga, Tshivenda and Sesotho. Within the relative clause, answers will be provided for the following issues which are basic to the relative clauses in these languages:
The structure of a relative clause, the relative determiner and marker and the reasons for the optionality of some of them, the tenses of the relative verb and the types of resumption within the TP, the restrictive, appositive and free relatives and lastly, the problems engenderd by coordinated and stacked relative clauses.