Breakdown of Wie zou de daklozen eigenlijk willen sponsoren?
wie
who
willen
to want
zullen
shall / will
eigenlijk
actually
dakloos
homeless
sponsoren
to sponsor
Questions & Answers about Wie zou de daklozen eigenlijk willen sponsoren?
Why are there two infinitives (willen sponsoren) at the end, and does their order matter?
This is a double infinitive construction triggered by the conjugated verb zou. It pushes the other verbs to the end of the clause as infinitives. The modal verb (willen) generally comes before the main action verb (sponsoren), making willen sponsoren the standard and preferred order.
de daklozen means "the homeless". How does this word formation work?
Dakloos is an adjective meaning "roofless" or "homeless" (dak + the suffix -loos). In Dutch, you can turn an adjective into a noun referring to people by adding an -e for singular or -en for plural. Because this refers to homeless people in general, it takes the plural form de daklozen.
What exactly does eigenlijk add to this sentence?
Eigenlijk translates to "actually" or "really." In questions, it is often used as a modal particle to soften the tone, expressing genuine curiosity or mild skepticism. Without it, Wie zou de daklozen willen sponsoren? would sound more direct and blunt.
sponsoren is clearly an English loanword. How do you conjugate verbs like this in Dutch?
Dutch easily adopts English verbs by attaching -en to create the infinitive. From there, it follows regular Dutch conjugation rules based on the stem sponsor. For example, the present tense is ik sponsor and hij sponsort, and the past participle is gesponsord.
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