Breakdown of Toen werd het eeuwenoude volksverhaal helaas vergeten.
vergeten
to forget
worden
to become
toen
when / then (in the past)
helaas
unfortunately
eeuwenoud
ancient
het volksverhaal
the folktale
Questions & Answers about Toen werd het eeuwenoude volksverhaal helaas vergeten.
Why does helaas come after the subject het eeuwenoude volksverhaal instead of right after the verb werd?
Helaas is a sentence-level adverb of evaluation. In the Dutch middle field, these adverbs typically come after a definite subject like het eeuwenoude volksverhaal. If the subject were indefinite (like een volksverhaal), the adverb would usually come before it.
The English translation says 'was forgotten', so why does the Dutch sentence use werd instead of was?
This sentence describes an event or process that happened in the past, so it uses the passive auxiliary worden in the past tense (werd). If you used was, it would describe a completed state, meaning the story had already been completely forgotten before that time.
Is vergeten at the end of the sentence an infinitive?
No, here it is the past participle used in a passive construction with werd. For the strong verb vergeten, the past participle looks exactly the same as the infinitive.
How is the adjective eeuwenoude formed?
It is a compound of eeuwen (centuries) and oud (old), meaning 'centuries-old'. It gets the -e ending here because it modifies a definite noun phrase (het volksverhaal), following standard adjective inflection rules.
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