Breakdown of Foi o investigador quem escreveu a equação.
ser
to be
quem
who
escrever
to write
o investigador
the researcher
a equação
the equation
Questions & Answers about Foi o investigador quem escreveu a equação.
Why do we use quem here instead of que?
Why does the sentence start with Foi instead of É?
In Portuguese emphatic structures, the verb ser usually agrees in tense with the main action verb. Because the researcher wrote the equation in the past (escreveu), the introductory verb also takes the past tense Foi rather than the present tense É.
If the subject were plural (the researchers), how would the verbs in this structure change?
The first verb agrees with the subject, so you would say Foram os investigadores. However, a special rule applies to quem: the verb following it always stays in the third-person singular. So the full sentence would be Foram os investigadores quem escreveu a equação. If you used que instead, both verbs would be plural: Foram os investigadores que escreveram a equação.
I learned that quem means 'whom'. Why does it mean 'who' in this sentence?
While quem often translates to 'whom' when it follows a preposition (like com quem), in emphatic structures like Foi... quem, it acts as the subject of the second verb. Therefore, it translates to 'who', indicating the person who performed the action.
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