Breakdown of Ha avuto una premonizione terribile, e lo ha confessato.
una
a / an (feminine)
e
and
avere
to have
lo
him/it (direct object)
Questions & Answers about Ha avuto una premonizione terribile, e lo ha confessato.
Since premonizione is feminine, why does the sentence use lo instead of la?
Shouldn't the past participle match the object? Why is it confessato and not confessata?
In compound tenses like the passato prossimo, the past participle must agree with the direct object pronouns lo, la, li, and le. Because we are using the pro-clausal lo (which is masculine singular), the participle takes the masculine singular ending -o, giving us confessato.
What if he confessed the premonition itself, rather than the fact that he had one?
If you wanted to strictly refer back to the feminine noun premonizione, you would use la. In that case, the past participle would also change to match it: la ha confessata (or more commonly, l'ha confessata). However, confessing the entire event using the pro-clausal lo sounds very natural in this context.
Could I write l'ha confessato instead of lo ha confessato?