Word
De boom waarvan we de stam zien, heeft lange wortels.
Meaning
The tree whose trunk we see has long roots.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De boom waarvan we de stam zien, heeft lange wortels.
hebben
to have
zien
to see
de boom
tree
lang
long
Questions & Answers about De boom waarvan we de stam zien, heeft lange wortels.
Why does the sentence use waarvan instead of wiens for "whose"?
In Dutch, the possessive word wiens (whose) is only used for people. Because de boom (the tree) is an inanimate object, you must use waarvan instead. It literally translates to "of which".
Why is there a de before stam? In English we just say "whose trunk".
Because waarvan works like "of which", the noun that follows it still needs its definite article (de or het). You are literally saying "The tree of which we see the trunk". When using waarvan to indicate possession, never drop the article of the possessed item.
Why is the verb zien at the end of the first clause?
waarvan we de stam zien is a relative clause, which functions as a subclause in Dutch. In a subclause, all verbs are pushed to the very end. That is why zien comes after de stam.
Why does the second part of the sentence start with the verb heeft?
This is the classic Dutch V2 (verb-second) rule in action. The entire phrase De boom waarvan we de stam zien acts as the subject of the sentence, taking up the entire first position. The main verb heeft must take the second position, so it comes immediately after the comma.