Greek to Spanish: keep the owner distinct from the noun that controls cuyo
A possessive relation can move into a relative construction
Greek can express possession through a weak genitive personal form after a noun, as in το βιβλίο της, her book. It also has relative constructions introducing information about a preceding entity. When a Greek passage links those relationships across a sentence, Spanish may express the connection through a possessive relative construction. The translation should preserve the person associated with the book, rather than merely reproduce the order noun plus possessive inside the source phrase.
Spanish cuyo introduces a possessed or related noun while referring back to an explicit antecedent. The owner is identified by that preceding antecedent, but cuyo agrees in gender and number with the following noun. This creates a crucial reading distinction: the gender of the target relative does not directly reveal the owner’s sex. A masculine owner can be followed by cuya if the associated Spanish noun is feminine.
Agreement follows the target item rather than the Greek form
The forms cuyo and cuya consequently cannot be selected by copying the gender of a Greek personal possessive or the antecedent. First identify the relationship and choose the Spanish noun; then select the relative’s agreement. Greek itself distributes gender and case information across nouns, articles, adjectives and pronouns, while the Spanish possessive relative bundles a different set of functions into its position before the associated noun.
For an original source passage about a researcher and that researcher’s discovery, the discovery remains associated with the same person when the Spanish noun determines feminine agreement. If the passage instead concerns several publications, number agreement changes with the publications. Neither adjustment permits the translator to switch the researcher’s identity. Keep the owner and related item as separate reference decisions even when a compact target construction expresses both together.
Cuyo is not a substitute for every relative or every ownership phrase
The RAE notes that cuyo can describe relationships beyond literal ownership, including consequences or approval associated with an antecedent. A Greek relative clause discussing the effects of an event may therefore admit a possessive-relative formulation without claiming that the event owns an object. But the explicit antecedent and the actual nominal relationship remain essential. An ordinary Greek relative about what someone did does not automatically require cuyo.
Register also affects the choice. The RAE describes cuyo as uncommon in informal conversation, where a relative construction with a possession verb is often preferred. A brief Greek personal message need not become unnecessarily formal merely to display a compact Spanish relative. Conversely, an explicit Greek relative with a clear ownership connection should not be reduced to the discouraged Spanish sequence que plus su just to keep source word order familiar. Select a valid target construction suited to the relationship and tone. Whether the result uses cuyo or a fuller paraphrase, it must identify the same antecedent, attach the correct related noun and preserve the information contributed by the original clause.
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