Word
O livro de história cujo autor conhecemos ontem está na mochila da Júlia.
Meaning
The history book whose author we met yesterday is in Júlia’s backpack.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Lesson
Breakdown of O livro de história cujo autor conhecemos ontem está na mochila da Júlia.
o livro
the book
estar
to be
de
of
nós
we
Questions & Answers about O livro de história cujo autor conhecemos ontem está na mochila da Júlia.
What does cujo mean here?
Cujo means whose. It connects o livro de história to autor and shows a possession relationship: the author is the author of the book.
So the core idea is:
o livro ... cujo autor ...
= the book ... whose author ...
In this sentence, it introduces a relative clause describing which book we are talking about.
Is cujo common in everyday Brazilian Portuguese?
It is correct and fully natural, but it sounds more formal or more written than very casual everyday speech.
In conversation, many Brazilians often avoid cujo by rephrasing the sentence. For example, they may change the word order instead of using a whose structure.
So:
- cujo = standard and elegant
- everyday speech = often rephrased in another way
Why is it cujo autor and not cuja or another form?