Breakdown of Daarna zal de bevolking van het land zijn verdubbeld.
zijn
to be
het land
the country
daarna
after that
zullen
shall / will
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
verdubbelen
to double
de bevolking
the population
Questions & Answers about Daarna zal de bevolking van het land zijn verdubbeld.
How does the future perfect tense work in this sentence?
The future perfect tense (will have done) uses a combination of zullen (will) and the perfect tense. Here, we have zal (will), zijn (have/be), and the past participle verdubbeld (doubled). Just like in English, it describes an action that will be completed by a certain point in the future.
Why do we use zijn here instead of hebben to mean "have doubled"?
In Dutch, verbs indicating a change of state often use zijn instead of hebben in perfect tenses. Since the population is changing its state (getting twice as big on its own), the verb verdubbelen takes zijn. If someone actively doubled something else (like "I have doubled my income"), it would take hebben.
Why is zal placed before the subject de bevolking?
The sentence starts with the adverb Daarna (After that). In Dutch main clauses, the conjugated verb must always be in the second position (the V2 rule). Because Daarna takes the first spot, the subject and the verb swap places, putting zal before de bevolking.
Could I write ...verdubbeld zijn instead of ...zijn verdubbeld at the end of the sentence?
Yes! In a clause with multiple verbs clustered at the end, the auxiliary verb (zijn) and the past participle (verdubbeld) can go in either order. Both zijn verdubbeld and verdubbeld zijn are grammatically correct and mean exactly the same thing.
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