Breakdown of We hebben de doos geopend, maar we hebben niets ontdekt.
maar
but
hebben
to have
openen
to open
niets
nothing
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
de doos
the box
ontdekken
to discover
Questions & Answers about We hebben de doos geopend, maar we hebben niets ontdekt.
How does niets work in this sentence?
Niets means "nothing" and acts as the direct object of the second clause. Just like in English ("we have discovered nothing"), you don't need an extra negative word like niet when you use niets.
Why is niets placed before ontdekt?
In the present perfect tense, the past participle (ontdekt) always gets pushed to the very end of the clause. Because of this rule, the object (niets) has to come before it.
Why doesn't the past participle ontdekt start with ge- like geopend does?
The verb ontdekken (to discover) starts with the prefix ont-. Verbs that start with inseparable prefixes like ont-, be-, ver-, or ge- never get an extra ge- added to their past participle. They just take the normal ending.
Why does the word order stay normal after maar?
Maar (but) is a coordinating conjunction, which means it glues two independent sentences together without messing up the word order of the second one. The second clause just starts over with the subject (we) in position 1, followed by the verb (hebben) in position 2.
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