Breakdown of Alles voor dat offer, redde wie zich redden kan!
wie
who
dat
that (het-words)
kunnen
can
voor
for (on behalf of)
zich
oneself
alles
everything
redden
to save (rescue)
het offer
the sacrifice
Questions & Answers about Alles voor dat offer, redde wie zich redden kan!
Why does the verb redden take the form redde here instead of the normal present tense redt?
This is the formulaic present subjunctive, which is mostly restricted to fixed expressions in modern Dutch. It is formed by taking the verb stem and adding -e. Here, redde roughly means let him save or may he save. The entire phrase redde wie zich redden kan is a set idiom equivalent to the English every man for himself!
How does the grammar of redde wie zich redden kan literally break down?
Literally translated, it says let him save (redde) who (wie) can (kan) save (redden) himself (zich). While English uses a simple noun phrase for this idiom, Dutch builds it using a subjunctive command followed by a dependent clause.
Why do we need the reflexive pronoun zich in this sentence?
When talking about saving oneself or fending for oneself, Dutch uses the reflexive verb zich redden. Since the subject of the dependent clause is wie (whoever), which acts as a third-person singular subject, the matching reflexive pronoun is zich.
Why is the modal verb kan placed at the very end of the sentence?
The segment wie zich redden kan is a dependent clause. In Dutch dependent clauses, all verbs get pushed to the end. Since there is a modal verb (kan) and an infinitive (redden), they form a verb cluster at the end of the phrase. Note that wie zich kan redden would also be perfectly correct word order here.
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