Word
Zonder jou zouden wij het ongeluk niet hebben voorkomen.
Meaning
Without you, we would not have prevented the accident.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Zonder jou zouden wij het ongeluk niet hebben voorkomen.
niet
not
wij
we
hebben
to have
zullen
shall / will
Questions & Answers about Zonder jou zouden wij het ongeluk niet hebben voorkomen.
How do we form the "would have" part of this sentence?
To express "would have done something" (the past conditional), Dutch uses the past tense of zullen (zouden for the plural wij) paired with the verb pile at the end of the sentence. That pile consists of the infinitive hebben (to have) and the past participle voorkomen (prevented).
Why doesn't the past participle voorkomen get a ge- prefix like most verbs?
The verb voorkomen (to prevent) is an inseparable prefix verb. In Dutch, when a prefix is inseparable (the stress falls on the root -ko-, not the prefix voor-), the past participle does not get a ge- added to it. So, the infinitive and the past participle look exactly the same!
Why is it zouden wij instead of wij zouden?
This is a great refresher for the "V2 rule" (verb second). Because the sentence starts with the prepositional phrase Zonder jou (Without you), the conjugated verb zouden must immediately follow it to stay in the second grammatical position. The subject wij is pushed to the other side of the verb.
At the end of the sentence, could I say voorkomen hebben instead of hebben voorkomen?