Breakdown of Hij bedenkt een betekenisvol plan.
betekenisvol
meaningful
bedenken
to devise / to think up
Questions & Answers about Hij bedenkt een betekenisvol plan.
This lesson is about pseudo-cleft sentences. How would I rewrite this sentence to heavily emphasize that what he devises is a meaningful plan?
You would turn the first part into a wat-clause: Wat hij bedenkt, is een betekenisvol plan. (What he devises is a meaningful plan). The subordinate clause (Wat hij bedenkt) acts as the subject of the whole sentence, so the main verb (is) comes immediately after the comma.
Why is it betekenisvol and not betekenisvolle?
Because plan is a neuter noun (het plan). Whenever you have a singular het-word preceded by the indefinite article een (a/an) or no article at all, the adjective before it drops the usual -e ending. If you used the definite article, it would be het betekenisvolle plan.
Is bedenken a separable verb? Shouldn't the be- part jump to the end of the sentence?
No, bedenken is inseparable. A reliable rule in Dutch is that verbs starting with unstressed prefixes like be-, ge-, ver-, ont-, and er- are never separable. Because of this, it stays bedenkt here, and its past participle doesn't get an extra ge- either (hij heeft bedacht).
What is the exact difference between denken and bedenken?
While denken just means "to think" as a general mental process, bedenken means "to think of," "to come up with," or "to devise." The prefix be- often turns a general action into a targeted one that produces a direct object—in this case, producing a plan.
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