Word
Na het afronden van het debat dienden wij een motie in.
Meaning
After concluding the debate, we submitted a motion.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Na het afronden van het debat dienden wij een motie in.
een
a/an
wij
we
het
it
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
Questions & Answers about Na het afronden van het debat dienden wij een motie in.
What is the formal function verb structure used in this sentence?
The structure is een motie indienen, which means to submit a motion. In formal contexts like politics or law, Dutch relies heavily on these fixed noun-verb combinations. The verb indienen acts as the light verb carrying the grammatical weight, while the noun motie contains the core meaning.
How does the separable verb behave in this specific noun-verb combination?
The light verb indienen is a separable verb. Because this sentence is a main clause, the conjugated part dienden takes the second position in the sentence, while the prefix in gets pushed to the very end, wrapping around the object een motie.
Why is the verb dienden placed before the subject wij?
The sentence begins with the long time phrase Na het afronden van het debat. Because this entire phrase occupies the first position, Dutch applies inversion. The conjugated verb dienden must take the second position, forcing the subject wij to immediately follow it.
Why do we use het afronden instead of a regular conjugated verb?
By placing the article het in front of the infinitive afronden, the verb is turned into a noun. This is called nominalization. This structure is required here because the preposition na must be followed by a noun phrase, translating roughly to after the wrapping up of the debate.