Breakdown of Zij pitchte het idee, hoewel de baas het weigerde.
zij
she
de baas
the boss
het
it
het idee
the idea
Questions & Answers about Zij pitchte het idee, hoewel de baas het weigerde.
Why is the past tense of pitchen spelled as pitchte with a 't' instead of a 'd'?
Even for English loanwords, Dutch applies standard conjugation rules. The stem of the verb pitchen is pitch. Because the final sound of the stem is a 'ch' sound (which is voiceless and included in the expanded mnemonic 't kofschip or xtc-koffieshop), the past tense takes the suffix -te, making it pitchte.
pitchte ends in -te, but weigerde ends in -de. What dictates this difference?
It comes down to the final sound of each verb stem. The stem of weigeren (to refuse) is weiger. Since the final letter 'r' is voiced and is not in 't kofschip, it gets the -de ending. In contrast, the stem of pitchen ends in the voiceless 'ch', which is in the rule, so it gets the -te ending.
Why does weigerde come at the very end of the sentence?
The word hoewel (although) is a subordinating conjunction. It introduces a dependent clause, which forces the conjugated verb (weigerde) to move to the very end of that clause.
Why do we use het in de baas het weigerde instead of hem?