Word
Afgaande op het bewijs, hadden we de klopgeest rationeel moeten verklaren.
Meaning
Judging by the evidence, we should have explained the poltergeist rationally.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Afgaande op het bewijs, hadden we de klopgeest rationeel moeten verklaren.
wij
we
hebben
to have
het
it
moeten
to have to, must
Questions & Answers about Afgaande op het bewijs, hadden we de klopgeest rationeel moeten verklaren.
What is the exact difference between afgaande op and uitgaande van in a sentence like this?
Afgaande op means "judging by" or "going by" — you are making a deduction based on something you can see or observe, like het bewijs (the evidence). If you used uitgaande van, it would mean "assuming" or "starting from the premise of", which changes the nuance from evaluating evidence to setting a hypothetical baseline.
Why is the word order hadden we inverted after the comma?
The entire participle phrase Afgaande op het bewijs occupies the first position in the main clause. Because Dutch is a V2 (verb-second) language, the finite verb hadden must take the second position, placing it immediately before the subject we.
Why does the sentence use the infinitives moeten verklaren instead of a past participle like "verklaard"?
This is due to the double infinitive rule. In perfect tenses (like the past perfect here with hadden), when a modal verb like moeten is used alongside another verb (verklaren), the modal does not get a ge- prefix. Instead, both verbs are placed at the end of the clause as infinitives.
How does hadden... moeten translate to "should have" rather than "had to"?
While hadden... moeten literally translates to "had to", Dutch uses this past perfect modal construction to express an unrealized past obligation. When you say you "had to" do something in the past perfect tense, it implies you didn't actually do it, making "should have" the most natural English equivalent.