Word
De bevende getuige kon de dader identificeren en aanwijzen.
Meaning
The trembling witness was able to identify and point out the perpetrator.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De bevende getuige kon de dader identificeren en aanwijzen.
en
and
kunnen
can
de dader
the perpetrator
de getuige
the witness
Questions & Answers about De bevende getuige kon de dader identificeren en aanwijzen.
If someone asked 'Was de getuige bevend?' (Was the witness trembling?), how would you answer using the resumptive pronoun het taught in this lesson?
You would say: Ja, hij was het. In Dutch, when replacing a previously mentioned adjective like bevend in the predicate, you use het to represent that state. You cannot simply say Ja, hij was, as leaving the predicate empty feels incomplete in Dutch.
Why is it bevende with an -e ending instead of just bevend?
Bevend is the present participle of beven (to tremble). When you use a present participle as an adjective in front of a noun, it follows the normal adjective inflection rules. Since getuige is a de-word, the adjective gets an -e.
Because aanwijzen is a separable verb, shouldn't the aan be separated from wijzen?
Not in this case. The modal verb kon pushes the main verbs (identificeren en aanwijzen) to the end of the sentence as infinitives. When a separable verb is placed at the end of a sentence as a full infinitive, the prefix stays attached.