Breakdown of Wij zochten de uitweg, maar daarvoor was geen tijd.
de uitweg
the way out
daarvoor
for that / before that
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Dutch grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Wij zochten de uitweg, maar daarvoor was geen tijd.
Why does the second clause use daarvoor instead of ervoor?
This is a strategy to avoid a double er clash. Expressing 'there was no time' requires an existential er (er was geen tijd), and 'for it' requires a prepositional er (ervoor). Because Dutch strictly avoids putting two ers in the same clause, the prepositional er is substituted with daar to make daarvoor ('for that').
Where did the existential er ('there') go? Shouldn't it be '...maar daarvoor was er geen tijd'?
Could we have kept ervoor and just deleted one of the ers?
Yes, absolutely! If you don't need the extra emphasis of daarvoor ('for that'), you can merge the two ers into a single word. You would split the pronominal adverb around the middle field, resulting in: maar er was geen tijd voor. In this case, that single er does double duty as both the 'there' and the 'for it'.
Why is the verb was placed before the subject geen tijd?