Breakdown of Daarna wordt de pion door de tegenstander verplaatst.
daarna
after that
worden
to become
door
by (agent in a passive sentence)
verplaatsen
to move
Questions & Answers about Daarna wordt de pion door de tegenstander verplaatst.
Why is the verb wordt placed before the subject de pion?
This is because the sentence starts with the time word Daarna (After that). In Dutch, the conjugated verb must always take the second position in a main clause. When you put a word like Daarna at the front, the verb wordt has to come immediately after it to keep its second-place spot. This pushes the subject de pion to the third spot, which is called inversion.
Why do we use wordt instead of is if the English translation says "is moved"?
Doesn't door normally mean "through"? Why is it used here?
Yes, door often means "through" (like walking through a park). However, in a passive sentence like this one, door is used to mean "by" to show who is performing the action. Here, door de tegenstander translates to "by the opponent".
Why is verplaatst all the way at the end of the sentence?
Verplaatst is a past participle (moved). In Dutch sentences with a helping verb (like wordt here), the past participle always gets pushed to the very end of the sentence.