Breakdown of Los que dudaron de la autoría legítima fueron los inversionistas.
ser
to be
de
from / of
que
that / than
lo
it / him (direct object)
dudar
to doubt
el inversionista
the investor
la autoría
the authorship
legítimo
legitimate
Questions & Answers about Los que dudaron de la autoría legítima fueron los inversionistas.
How does the structure 'los que ... fueron' work in this sentence?
This is a subject-focus pseudo-cleft sentence, which is a way to strongly emphasize who did an action. It translates to "The ones who... were...". Notice that the verb ser (here in the preterite as fueron) must agree with the emphasized subject at the end of the sentence, which is los inversionistas (third-person plural).
Could I use 'quienes' instead of 'los que' at the beginning of the sentence?
Why is there a 'de' after 'dudaron'? In English we just say "doubted the authorship."
When you doubt a specific noun, fact, or person (meaning "to have doubts about"), Spanish requires the preposition de: dudar de algo. If you drop the de, the verb dudar is typically followed by que and a subjunctive clause to express doubting that something happens (e.g., Dudo que vengan - I doubt that they are coming).
Since the investors are masculine plural, why doesn't the word end in "-istos" (inversionistos)?
Nouns ending in -ista (like inversionista, artista, turista) are invariable, meaning their ending doesn't change based on gender. To show that the group is masculine (or a mixed-gender group), you only change the article: los inversionistas. For an all-female group of investors, it would be las inversionistas.
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