Word
De koningin, wier wettige dochter haar zal opvolgen, is machtig.
Meaning
The queen, whose legitimate daughter will succeed her, is powerful.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De koningin, wier wettige dochter haar zal opvolgen, is machtig.
zijn
to be
haar
her
zullen
shall / will
de koningin
the queen
Questions & Answers about De koningin, wier wettige dochter haar zal opvolgen, is machtig.
Why do we use wier instead of wiens for "whose" here?
Wier is the formal relative pronoun used when the noun it refers back to is feminine or plural. Since de koningin (the queen) is feminine, we use wier. If the noun were masculine or neuter (like de koning), you would use wiens. Note that in everyday spoken Dutch, people usually avoid both and instead say van wie de.
Does the adjective wettige get an -e ending because of the word wier?
Yes, exactly. Relative pronouns like wier and wiens function as possessives. After any possessive word, the following adjective always gets the standard -e ending, regardless of whether the noun it modifies is a de-word or a het-word.
Why are the verbs zal and opvolgen clustered at the very end of the comma-separated clause?
The phrase wier wettige dochter haar zal opvolgen is a relative clause. Relative clauses follow subclause word order, meaning all verbs are pushed to the end. The auxiliary verb zal and the infinitive opvolgen form a verb cluster. You could also reverse them and say haar opvolgen zal, but zal opvolgen is more common.
Could I use the reflexive pronoun zich instead of haar here?