Breakdown of Ona misli da je to moja krivnja, ali čija je stvarno?
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
ona
she
to
that
ali
but (strong contrast)
Questions & Answers about Ona misli da je to moja krivnja, ali čija je stvarno?
Why is čija used instead of čiji or čije in the second part of the sentence?
The word čija (whose) is a possessive pronoun that must match the gender, number, and case of the noun it refers to. Here, it refers back to the noun krivnja (fault), which is feminine singular. Even though krivnja is not repeated in the second half of the sentence, the pronoun still takes the feminine form čija to match it.
If krivnja is feminine, why does the sentence use the neuter word to in da je to moja krivnja instead of the feminine ta?
In this context, to is acting as a dummy subject meaning 'it' or 'that' in general. When you are identifying or pointing out what something is, Croatian uses the fixed neuter pronoun to, regardless of the gender of the noun that follows it. The possessive pronoun moja, however, still has to agree with the feminine noun krivnja.
Why is the verb je placed right after čija in the second clause?
The word je is an enclitic, which means it is a weak word that usually needs to be in the second position of a sentence or clause. In the clause ali čija je stvarno?, the conjunction ali does not count for clitic placement. So, čija is in the first position, and the clitic je naturally falls right into the second position.