Breakdown of Die laarzen, die hebben geen rits.
hebben
to have
geen
no / not any
die
that / those (de-words and plurals)
de rits
the zipper
Questions & Answers about Die laarzen, die hebben geen rits.
Why do we say Die laarzen, die... instead of just Die laarzen hebben...?
This is called left dislocation. We pull the topic (Die laarzen) out to the very front to emphasize it, and then start the actual sentence by pointing back to it with a demonstrative pronoun (die). It is a very common way in spoken Dutch to highlight exactly what you are talking about.
Why use the demonstrative pronoun die after the comma instead of the regular pronoun ze (they)?
When using this left dislocation structure, Dutch strongly prefers demonstrative pronouns (die or dat) to point back to the emphasized topic. Because laarzen is plural, we use die. Using ze here would sound much less natural for this specific grammatical structure.
Doesn't the verb need to come right after the comma? Why isn't it ..., hebben die...?
No, because the phrase before the comma (Die laarzen) is grammatically outside the main clause. The main clause only begins after the comma with the subject die. Since die is in position one of this main clause, the verb hebben correctly goes in position two.
Just as a refresher, why is it geen rits and not niet een rits?