Word
De soldaten zouden het incident op de basis hebben verdoezeld.
Meaning
The soldiers reportedly covered up the incident on the base.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De soldaten zouden het incident op de basis hebben verdoezeld.
hebben
to have
op
on
zullen
shall / will
de soldaat
the soldier
Questions & Answers about De soldaten zouden het incident op de basis hebben verdoezeld.
How does zouden translate to 'reportedly' here instead of 'would'?
In Dutch journalism and daily speech, zouden is often used to report unverified information or allegations, acting much like 'is said to', 'allegedly', or 'reportedly' in English. This is its evidential function, which is distinct from its use as a conditional.
Why is the verb verdoezelen paired with hebben instead of being in a simple past tense?
Because zouden acts as a modal verb here, it pushes the other verbs to the end of the sentence in their infinitive form. To express that the alleged cover-up already happened in the past, Dutch uses the perfect infinitive hebben verdoezeld (literally 'to have covered up').
Could I say verdoezeld hebben instead of hebben verdoezeld at the end of this sentence?
Yes. When you have an auxiliary verb (hebben) and a past participle (verdoezeld) at the end of a clause, they can go in either order. Both hebben verdoezeld (which is slightly more common in formal writing) and verdoezeld hebben are perfectly correct.
What does the verb verdoezelen literally mean?
Verdoezelen means to blur, smudge, or hush up. It originally referred to smudging lines in a drawing to make them less distinct, which perfectly fits the metaphorical meaning of making the facts of an incident blurry or hidden from the public.