Word
O roubo, o vídeo conseguiu comprová-lo.
Meaning
The theft, the video managed to prove it.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of O roubo, o vídeo conseguiu comprová-lo.
o vídeo
the video
-lo
it / him (m) [-la, -los, -las]
conseguir
to manage / to get / obtain
o roubo
the theft
Questions & Answers about O roubo, o vídeo conseguiu comprová-lo.
Why do we use both O roubo at the start and the pronoun -lo at the end? Isn't that redundant?
This is a classic example of topicalization (specifically, left-dislocation). By moving the direct object (O roubo) to the front of the sentence, we emphasize it as the main topic. When we do this in Portuguese, we need a resumptive clitic—the pronoun -lo—attached to the verb to grammatically refer back to that front-loaded object. Without -lo, the sentence would feel grammatically incomplete.
Why does comprovar change to comprová-lo?
When attaching the direct object pronouns o, a, os, or as to a verb ending in -r, -s, or -z, you drop that final consonant and add an l to the pronoun (making it -lo here). Since we dropped the -r from comprovar, we must add an acute accent to the final a (comprová) to ensure the pronunciation stress stays on that last syllable.
Could we attach the pronoun to the first verb and say conseguiu-o comprovar?
Yes, you can. In a verb phrase with an auxiliary verb (conseguiu) and an infinitive (comprovar), European Portuguese allows you to attach the clitic pronoun to either verb. Attaching it to the infinitive (comprová-lo) is very natural and frequently preferred, but both are grammatically correct.
Why use comprovar here instead of just provar?