Word
De plant waarvan de stengels een zoete geur hebben, ruikt heerlijk.
Meaning
The plant whose stems have a sweet scent smells wonderful.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De plant waarvan de stengels een zoete geur hebben, ruikt heerlijk.
een
a/an
hebben
to have
de plant
the plant
zoet
sweet
Questions & Answers about De plant waarvan de stengels een zoete geur hebben, ruikt heerlijk.
Why do we use waarvan here instead of wiens for the word whose?
In Dutch, wiens is only used for people, usually males. For inanimate objects like de plant, you must use waarvan, which literally means of which.
Why is there a de before stengels? Doesn't waarvan already mean whose?
It does, but unlike the English word whose, waarvan does not replace the article of the noun that follows it. You literally have to say of which the stems (waarvan de stengels). If you dropped the de, the sentence would be grammatically incomplete.
Why are there two verbs right next to each other across the comma: hebben, ruikt?
The core main sentence is De plant ruikt heerlijk. That sentence is interrupted by the relative clause (waarvan de stengels een zoete geur hebben). Because relative clauses send their verbs to the end, hebben sits right before the comma. The entire subject phrase from De plant to hebben counts as the first position, so the main verb ruikt immediately follows it in the second position.
Can heerlijk be used to describe a smell? I thought it meant delicious.