Breakdown of Blijkbaar had hij de auto pas op maandag gerepareerd.
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
de auto
the car
hebben
to have
op
on
maandag
Monday
repareren
to repair
blijkbaar
apparently
pas
only / not until (of time)
Questions & Answers about Blijkbaar had hij de auto pas op maandag gerepareerd.
How does the past perfect tense work in this sentence?
The past perfect is made using the past tense of hebben (here, had for hij) plus the past participle of the main verb (gerepareerd). Just like the present perfect, the auxiliary verb (had) takes the second spot in the sentence structure (or right next to it), and the past participle goes all the way to the end of the sentence.
Why is the word order had hij instead of hij had?
This is because of inversion. In standard Dutch main clauses, the verb must be the second idea in the sentence. Since this sentence starts with the adverb Blijkbaar (Apparently), the verb had takes the second spot, forcing the subject hij to come right after it.
Does pas mean "only" here? Why not use alleen?
Yes! Pas is used to mean "only" or "not until" when you are talking about time. If you used alleen, it would mean he was the only person who repaired the car, or he only repaired it and did nothing else. Pas op maandag means it didn't happen until Monday.
Why does the past participle gerepareerd end in a -d rather than a -t?
This follows the 't kofschip rule for regular verbs. The infinitive is repareren. If you remove the -en, the stem is repareer, which ends in an r. Since r is not one of the consonants in the word 't kofschip (t, k, f, s, c, h, p), the past participle gets a -d at the end instead of a -t.
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