Breakdown of Wij lezen de beschrijving van de vermissing.
wij
we
lezen
to read
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
de beschrijving
the description
Questions & Answers about Wij lezen de beschrijving van de vermissing.
Both beschrijving and vermissing end in -ing. How do these words work?
Just like in English, adding -ing to a Dutch verb stem often turns it into a noun that represents the action or its result. Beschrijving (description) comes from the verb beschrijven (to describe), and vermissing (disappearance/missing person case) comes from vermissen (to miss). Note that all nouns ending in this -ing suffix are de words.
This lesson is about past participles used as adjectives. How does vermissing relate to that?
While vermissing is a noun meaning "disappearance," its related past participle is vermist (missing). If you want to use it as an adjective before a noun (attributively), you would use vermist and add an -e because it's a de word. For example: de vermiste persoon (the missing person) or de vermiste kat (the missing cat).
Why do we say de beschrijving van de vermissing instead of mashing them into a compound noun?
Dutch loves compound nouns, so you theoretically could create a word like vermissingsbeschrijving. However, stringing together multiple long, formal nouns ending in -ing can sound very clunky and bureaucratic. Using van de (of the) makes the sentence flow much better and is the most natural choice here.