Breakdown of Mocht het scherm de foutmelding weergeven, herstart dan de router.
mogen
to be allowed to / may
het
it
dan
then
het scherm
the screen
Questions & Answers about Mocht het scherm de foutmelding weergeven, herstart dan de router.
Why is the past tense of mogen (mocht) used here?
In Dutch, starting a conditional clause with mocht (or mochten for plural) plus an infinitive at the end creates a high-improbability conditional. It translates perfectly to the English structure "Should the screen display..." or "If the screen happens to display...". It implies that you think the error message is relatively unlikely to appear.
Why does this sentence start with the verb mocht instead of als (if)?
Just like in English ("Should you need help" vs "If you should need help"), you can drop the word als (if) in conditional sentences. When you do this in Dutch, you must apply inversion, putting the verb before the subject. So instead of Als het scherm de foutmelding mocht weergeven, it simply becomes Mocht het scherm....
What is the function of dan in the second half of the sentence?
Dan (then) acts as a bridge between the condition and the consequence. Since the entire first clause takes up the first position of the sentence, the main clause must start with the verb (herstart) to satisfy the verb-second (V2) rule. Placing dan right after the imperative verb makes this cause-and-effect structure flow much more smoothly and naturally.
Weergeven is a separable verb. Why isn't it split up here?