Questions & Answers about Hij wast zijn haar.
What is the grammatical breakdown of the sentence?
- Hij = he (subject pronoun)
- wast = washes (3rd person singular present of wassen)
- zijn = his (possessive adjective)
- haar = hair (a mass noun; grammatical gender: neuter, with article het when used with an article: het haar)
Why is it wast and not was?
Because Dutch adds -t to the verb stem for 3rd person singular in the present tense.
Is zijn here the verb “to be”?
No. In this sentence zijn is a possessive adjective meaning his. The verb “to be” is zijn as an infinitive, but as a finite verb it’s is in the 3rd person: Hij is…
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