Breakdown of De gedichten waren niet door de vertaler geschreven.
zijn
to be
niet
not
schrijven
to write
door
by (agent in a passive sentence)
het gedicht
the poem
de vertaler
the translator
Questions & Answers about De gedichten waren niet door de vertaler geschreven.
How do we express who did the action in a passive sentence like this?
You use the word door (which often means 'through' or 'by'). Here, door de vertaler tells us who didn't write the poems. In Dutch passive sentences, the person or thing actually doing the action is always introduced with door.
I thought passive sentences used worden. Why does this sentence use waren (were)?
You use worden (or the past tense werden) to describe the action taking place. However, to describe a completed state or result, Dutch uses forms of zijn (like the past tense waren). De gedichten waren geschreven means the writing was already finished; it focuses on the completed state of the poems rather than the ongoing action of writing them.
Why is the past participle geschreven at the very end of the sentence?
In Dutch, the past participle (like geschreven) is pushed to the end of the clause. The helping verb (waren) stays in the second position, and all the extra information—like niet door de vertaler—is sandwiched between them.
Why does niet go before door de vertaler instead of after it?
When you want to negate a specific prepositional phrase in Dutch (like door de vertaler), you place niet right in front of it. This places the emphasis on the fact that it was not by the translator that the poems were written.
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