Breakdown of Het bos lijkt doodstil en ik hoor geen enkele ziel.
ik
I
en
and
horen
to hear
het bos
the forest
lijken
to seem
doodstil
dead quiet
geen enkel
not a single / no ... whatsoever (also geen enkele)
de ziel
the soul
Questions & Answers about Het bos lijkt doodstil en ik hoor geen enkele ziel.
Why does enkel get an -e at the end in geen enkele ziel?
Could I use a plural noun here and say geen enkele zielen?
No, geen enkel(e) is always followed by a singular noun. This works exactly like English: you say "not a single soul", never "not a single souls", even though the actual amount of souls you hear is zero!
How common is it to use dood- to emphasize words like in doodstil?
Very common! Just like in English ("dead quiet", "dead tired"), Dutch frequently attaches dood- to adjectives for extreme emphasis. Other everyday examples you will encounter include doodmoe (exhausted) and doodeng (terrifying).
Why doesn't the verb move to the end of the sentence after en?
The word en (and) is a coordinating conjunction, which means it simply glues two independent sentences together without changing the word order in either of them. The second clause keeps the standard Subject-Verb-Object order: ik (subject), hoor (verb), geen enkele ziel (object).
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