Breakdown of Met die museumkaart zouden we alle tentoonstellingen kunnen zien.
Questions & Answers about Met die museumkaart zouden we alle tentoonstellingen kunnen zien.
Because the sentence begins with the fronted adverbial met die museumkaart, Dutch word order in main clauses places the finite verb in second position. As soon as something other than the subject is first, the verb comes next and the subject follows.
Example without fronting: We zouden met die museumkaart alle tentoonstellingen kunnen zien.
If you put the subject first, you follow standard S-V-O-… structure. For example:
• We (subject)
• zouden (finite verb)
• met die museumkaart (adverbial)
• alle tentoonstellingen (object)
• kunnen zien (infinitives at the end)
→ We zouden met die museumkaart alle tentoonstellingen kunnen zien.
• de museumkaart = “the museum card” (neutral, definite)
• deze museumkaart = “this museum card” (something close or just introduced)
• die museumkaart = “that museum card” (referring back to a card already mentioned or known, or something more distant)
Here die is a demonstrative adjective pointing to a specific, previously mentioned card.
• alle + plural noun expresses the entire set collectively (“all the exhibitions”).
• elke + singular noun focuses on each individual item (“each exhibition”).
Because the idea is to see every exhibition as a whole, Dutch uses alle tentoonstellingen.
Dutch allows “verb clusters.” Here:
- zouden = finite auxiliary, conditional of zullen (“would”)
- kunnen = non-finite modal (“be able to”)
- zien = non-finite main verb (“see”)
Rule: in main clauses the finite verb sits in V2, while all non-finite verbs (infinitives/participles) go to the sentence’s end in the order they appear in the bracketed underlying structure: [zouden [we [kunnen [zien]]]].
Invert the finite verb and subject for a yes-no question:
Zouden we met die museumkaart alle tentoonstellingen kunnen zien?
You can also keep the adverbial first and use rising intonation in speech:
Met die museumkaart zouden we alle tentoonstellingen kunnen zien?