de la qual / del qual

Del Qual for Possessive Relations

Level 5

Del qual and its inflected forms express a possessive relation inside a relative clause.

How It Works

Catalan often renders English whose with a noun followed by del qual: una autora els llibres de la qual admiro. La qual agrees with autora, the possessor; els llibres agrees independently as the thing possessed.

Long possessive relatives require two separate agreement checks. In les empreses els comptes de les quals revisem, quals follows empreses, while els comptes is the plural masculine object of revisem. A reader should not have to guess which noun is possessed and which is the possessor. Keep the antecedent close, and use a simpler second sentence when the nested noun phrase becomes harder to follow than the information warrants.

Examples (3)

  1. Són les empreses els comptes de les quals revisem.

    They are the companies whose accounts we review.

  2. És el document la signatura del qual falta.

    It is the document whose signature is missing.

  3. Conec la investigadora els articles de la qual cites.

    I know the researcher whose articles you cite.

How It Connects

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de la qual / del qualLevel 5Del Qual for Possessive Relations

Learn This First

Separate possessor and possessed noun before assigning relative agreement.

Words in This Pattern

qual