When talking about people and their legacies, you often need to say "whose" (e.g., "the king whose descendants..."). In Spanish, we do this using the formal relative possessive adjective cuyo.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | cuyo | cuyos |
| Feminine | cuya | cuyas |
Agreeing with the possessed noun
The most important rule for cuyo is that it must match the gender and number of the noun that comes immediately after it (the thing being possessed). It does not match the owner!
Here, the singer owns the talent (el talento), which is masculine and singular. Therefore, we use cuyo:
| The singer, whose talent was obvious, had to write a song. | El cantante, cuyo talento era obvio, tenía que escribir una canción. |
If the possessed noun is plural, like los descendientes, we use cuyos:
| He was a king whose descendants had lost the empire. | Fue un rey cuyos descendientes habían perdido el imperio. |
Feminine possessions
Even if the owner is masculine, if the thing they possess is feminine, you must use cuya or cuyas. In the next example, the poet (el poeta) is a man, but his influence (la influencia) is feminine and singular:
| The poet, whose influence was enormous, left a valuable heritage. | El poeta, cuya influencia fue enorme, dejó una herencia valiosa. |
And if the feminine possession is plural, like las biografías, we use cuyas:
| The pioneers, whose biographies I read on Monday, were brave. | Los pioneros, cuyas biografías leí el lunes, fueron valientes. |