Breakdown of Wil jij dat waardevolle boek liever aan hem teruggeven?
jij
you
het boek
the book
willen
to want
dat
that (het-words)
liever
rather (prefer)
hem
him
aan
to (recipient)
waardevol
valuable
teruggeven
to give back
Questions & Answers about Wil jij dat waardevolle boek liever aan hem teruggeven?
Why does this sentence use aan hem instead of a pronominal adverb like daaraan?
Pronominal adverbs (like eraan, daaraan, or waaraan) are only used when referring to things. Because you are giving the book back to a person (hem), you must use the regular preposition and pronoun combination (aan hem).
Boek is a het-word, so why does the adjective waardevolle get an -e at the end?
You only drop the -e ending for het-words when they are indefinite (like when using een, or no article at all). Here, the demonstrative word dat acts like a definite article (just like het), so the adjective keeps the -e. For example: een waardevol boek, but dat waardevolle boek.
Why is liever used to mean "rather"?
Liever is the comparative form of the adverb graag (gladly/with pleasure). When you want to say you "prefer" to do something or would "rather" do it, you use liever.
Why isn't the separable verb teruggeven split in this sentence?
Because the sentence uses the modal verb wil in the second position, the main verb (teruggeven) is pushed to the very end of the sentence as a full, unsplit infinitive. It would only split if it were the main conjugated verb, like in: Jij geeft het boek terug.
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