Word
De arts van wie de leeftijd onbekend is, bezoekt de reünie.
Meaning
The doctor whose age is unknown visits the reunion.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De arts van wie de leeftijd onbekend is, bezoekt de reünie.
zijn
to be
de arts
the doctor
wie
who
bezoeken
to visit
Questions & Answers about De arts van wie de leeftijd onbekend is, bezoekt de reünie.
Why does the Dutch sentence say van wie de leeftijd instead of just having a word for "whose"?
In Dutch, van wie literally means "of whom". Unlike English, which drops the article "the" after "whose", Dutch requires you to keep the article of the possessed noun. So you literally say "of whom the age" (van wie de leeftijd).
Is there a single Dutch word for "whose" that I could use here instead?
You might encounter wiens (for males) or wier (for females) in formal written Dutch, so wiens leeftijd is technically possible if the doctor is male. However, van wie followed by the article is much more common in everyday language, and it is easier because you do not need to worry about the person's gender.
Why is the verb is placed right before the comma?
The phrase van wie de leeftijd onbekend is is a relative clause (giving more information about the doctor). Relative clauses follow subclause word order in Dutch, meaning the conjugated verb (is) gets pushed to the very end of that clause.
Why does the main verb bezoekt come immediately after the comma?
Dutch main clauses follow the Verb-Second (V2) rule, meaning the conjugated verb must be the second structural element. Here, the entire chunk De arts van wie de leeftijd onbekend is counts as the first element (the subject), so the main verb bezoekt must come directly after it.