Breakdown of De vergroening is belangrijk, dus er wordt veel over nagedacht.
zijn
to be
veel
much / many / a lot of
belangrijk
important
worden
to become
Questions & Answers about De vergroening is belangrijk, dus er wordt veel over nagedacht.
Why does this sentence use er wordt ... over nagedacht to mean "it is being thought about"?
The active verb here is nadenken over (to think about). To make this passive when there is no direct object, Dutch uses an impersonal construction. Instead of using a literal translation with a subject like het (which would be incorrect), Dutch uses the dummy subject er and pairs it with the fixed preposition over. This forms the passive structure er wordt ... over nagedacht.
What is the rule for placing wordt veel between er and over?
In this sentence, er and over are parts of the split pronominal adverb erover (about it). Because er is acting as the grammatical subject of the clause, it must sit near the front, right after the conjunction dus. The preposition over, however, is pushed toward the end of the clause, just before the past participle. The finite verb (wordt) and adverbs like veel naturally fall into the space between them.
Why is the past participle nagedacht and not just gedacht?
The verb used with the preposition over isn't just denken (to think), but the separable verb nadenken (to ponder / to think about). When a separable verb is turned into a past participle, the ge- is placed between the prefix (na-) and the verb root (dacht), resulting in nagedacht.
How is the noun formed?