Breakdown of Zij voorspellen dat de technologie de wereld zal hebben veranderd.
zij
they
hebben
to have
zullen
shall / will
veranderen
to change
de wereld
the world
dat
that (conjunction)
voorspellen
to predict
de technologie
the technology
Questions & Answers about Zij voorspellen dat de technologie de wereld zal hebben veranderd.
How is the future perfect tense formed in this sentence?
To say "will have changed", Dutch uses a cluster of three verbs: the future auxiliary zal (will), the perfect auxiliary hebben (have), and the past participle veranderd (changed).
Why are all three verbs stacked at the very end of the sentence?
The word dat (that) introduces a subordinate clause, which forces all the verbs to the end. If this were a simple main clause without dat, the first verb would sit in the normal second position: De technologie zal de wereld hebben veranderd.
Does the order of the verbs in zal hebben veranderd matter?
In a subordinate clause's verb cluster, the past participle (veranderd) can go before or after the helping verbs. Both ...dat de technologie de wereld zal hebben veranderd and ...dat de technologie de wereld veranderd zal hebben are perfectly correct.
The sentence starts with Zij (they). Why is the future verb zal instead of the plural zullen?
The verb zal belongs to the subordinate clause, so it must match its own subject, which is de technologie (singular). The verb that matches the plural Zij is the main clause verb voorspellen (predict).
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