Word
Na de confrontatie werd de man in de cel agressief.
Meaning
After the lineup, the man in the cell became aggressive.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Na de confrontatie werd de man in de cel agressief.
de man
the man
in
in
worden
to become
na
after (preposition)
Questions & Answers about Na de confrontatie werd de man in de cel agressief.
The translation says 'after the lineup', but doesn't confrontatie mean 'confrontation'?
Yes, it generally means 'confrontation' in everyday Dutch. However, in a police or legal context, een confrontatie specifically refers to a police lineup or identity parade, where a witness or victim is brought face-to-face with suspects.
Why is the word order werd de man instead of de man werd?
This is a classic example of the Dutch V2 (verb-second) rule. Because the sentence starts with the prepositional phrase Na de confrontatie, the conjugated verb werd must take the second position. The subject de man in de cel is then pushed to the third position.
How could I apply this lesson's topic (the predicative resumptive het) to this sentence?
If someone asks you Werd de man agressief? (Did the man become aggressive?), you could answer Ja, hij werd het. In this case, het acts as a placeholder replacing the adjective agressief, which is similar to saying 'Yes, he became so' in English.
Could I move in de cel to the end of the sentence, like Na de confrontatie werd de man agressief in de cel?
Grammatically yes, but it changes the nuance slightly. In the original sentence, de man in de cel is a single descriptive unit (the subject), meaning 'the specific man who is in the cell'. If you put in de cel at the end, it acts as a location phrase for the verb, emphasizing where the action of becoming aggressive took place.