Breakdown of Het was de koningin die het rijk stichtte.
zijn
to be
het
it
die
who / that (relative pronoun)
de koningin
the queen
het rijk
the empire
stichten
to found (e.g. a family, a city)
Questions & Answers about Het was de koningin die het rijk stichtte.
Why do we use die here for 'who' instead of wie?
In cleft sentences ('It was X who...'), the connecting word is a relative pronoun. In Dutch, you choose between die and dat. Because de koningin is a de-word, we use die. You generally only use wie as a relative pronoun when it follows a preposition (like aan wie).
Why is the verb stichtte at the very end of the sentence?
The second half of this sentence, die het rijk stichtte, is a relative clause. Relative clauses use subordinate word order, which means the conjugated verb gets pushed to the end of the clause.
Why does stichtte have a double 't'?
The infinitive of the verb is stichten (to found). To form the simple past, you take the stem, which is sticht. Because the stem already ends in a 't', adding the regular singular past tense ending -te results in stichtte.
I thought rijk meant 'rich'. Why does it mean 'empire' here?
When used as an adjective, rijk does indeed mean 'rich'. However, here it is used as a noun (het rijk), which translates to 'the empire', 'the realm', or 'the state'.
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