Breakdown of De zwaartekracht van het zonnestelsel wordt geboekstaafd.
worden
to become
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
boekstaven
to record / to document (in writing)
de zwaartekracht
the gravity
het zonnestelsel
the solar system
Questions & Answers about De zwaartekracht van het zonnestelsel wordt geboekstaafd.
Since boekstaven is an inseparable back-formation, why is the past participle geboekstaafd instead of boekgestaafd?
The verb boekstaven was formed backward from the existing noun boekstaaf. Because it acts as one solid, inseparable unit rather than a separable compound verb, the past participle prefix ge- goes at the very beginning (geboekstaafd) rather than in the middle.
Why does geboekstaafd end with a 'd' when the letter right before it is an 'f'? Doesn't the 't kofschip rule apply?
The 't kofschip rule always looks at the final consonant of the grammatical stem, which we find by dropping -en from the infinitive boekstaven. That leaves a stem ending in 'v'. Since 'v' is a voiced consonant (not in 't kofschip), the participle takes a 'd'. The 'v' is only written as an 'f' because Dutch spelling rules dictate that words cannot end in 'v'.
The English translation says 'is documented'. Why does the Dutch sentence use wordt instead of is?
In Dutch, wordt is used to form the passive voice for actions that are currently happening or represent a general rule (the ongoing process of documenting). If the sentence used is geboekstaafd, it would describe a completed state, meaning the documenting was already entirely finished.
Why is the connecting vowel in zonnestelsel just an 'e' and not 'en'?
Usually, if the first part of a compound noun has a plural ending in -en (like zonnen), we use the connector -en-. However, there is a spelling exception for unique entities like the sun or the moon. Because our planet only revolves around one sun, words like zonnestelsel and zonneschijn only get an -e-.
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