Breakdown of Het was de schrijver die het meesterwerk publiceerde.
zijn
to be
het
it
die
who / that (relative pronoun)
de schrijver
the writer
het meesterwerk
the masterpiece
publiceren
to publish (make public)
Questions & Answers about Het was de schrijver die het meesterwerk publiceerde.
Why do we use die here instead of dat for 'who'?
In Dutch cleft sentences (like 'It was X who...'), the word for 'who' or 'that' depends on the noun being emphasized. Because schrijver is a de word (de schrijver), we use the relative pronoun die. If we were emphasizing a het word, we would use dat instead.
What is the difference between saying this and just saying De schrijver publiceerde het meesterwerk?
Using the structure Het was ... die ... adds strong emphasis to a specific part of the sentence. Here, it specifically stresses that it was the writer (and not the editor, the illustrator, or someone else) who published the masterpiece.
Why is the verb publiceerde at the very end of the sentence?
The phrase die het meesterwerk publiceerde is a relative clause. In Dutch, relative clauses always use subordinate word order, which means the conjugated verb gets pushed all the way to the end of the clause.
How is the past tense publiceerde formed from publiceren?
If you drop the -en from publiceren, you get the base stem. We double the e to publiceer to keep the long vowel sound. Since the last letter r is not in 't kofschip (the memory trick for past tense endings), we add the voiced ending -de for the singular past tense.
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