Word
De politie heeft de beschadigde auto gezien.
Meaning
The police have seen the damaged car.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De politie heeft de beschadigde auto gezien.
de auto
the car
hebben
to have
zien
to see
de politie
the police
Questions & Answers about De politie heeft de beschadigde auto gezien.
Why does beschadigde have an -e at the end?
It is the past participle of the verb beschadigen (to damage) being used as an adjective to describe the car. Just like regular adjectives, past participles get an -e ending when they come before a noun, unless it is an indefinite het-word. Since auto is a de-word, beschadigd becomes beschadigde.
Why does the Dutch sentence use the singular verb heeft when the English translation says "have"?
In Dutch, the word politie is grammatically singular. You treat it like a single unit or organization, so it takes the singular verb heeft. In English, "police" is treated as a plural noun, which is why the translation uses "have".
How do we determine that the base past participle is beschadigd (with a -d) before adding the extra -e?
We use the 't kofschip rule. The infinitive is beschadigen. Removing the -en gives the stem beschadig. The final letter is g, which is not in the word 't kofschip. Therefore, the past participle gets a -d at the end instead of a -t.
Why are heeft and gezien separated?