Breakdown of Het onderzoek wordt door de deskundige gecontroleerd.
controleren
to check
worden
to become
door
by (agent in a passive sentence)
het onderzoek
the research / the investigation
de deskundige
the expert
Questions & Answers about Het onderzoek wordt door de deskundige gecontroleerd.
Since the current lesson focuses on prepositions like 'volgens' and 'namens', why is 'door' used here?
In a passive sentence like this, door (by) introduces the person actually performing the action. If you used volgens de deskundige, it would mean 'according to the expert' implying someone else is doing the checking. If you used namens de deskundige, it would mean someone else is checking it 'on behalf of' the expert.
Why does the Dutch sentence use 'wordt' (becomes) when the English translation says 'is'?
Is 'deskundige' a noun or an adjective here?
It acts as a noun here, but it comes from the adjective deskundig (knowledgeable). In Dutch, you can easily turn an adjective into a person by adding an -e and putting de in front of it. Another common example is de zieke (the sick person).
Why is the word 'gecontroleerd' at the very end of the sentence?
This is the standard Dutch word order. The conjugated verb (wordt) sits in the second position of the sentence, but any other verbs in that clause, like the past participle gecontroleerd, must be pushed to the very end. The prepositional phrase door de deskundige gets sandwiched between them.
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