Waarom staan de kinderen zo hard te schreeuwen?

why

Breakdown of Waarom staan de kinderen zo hard te schreeuwen?

• het kind: the child
• zo: so
• hard: loudly

Questions & Answers about Waarom staan de kinderen zo hard te schreeuwen?

Why is the sentence Waarom staan de kinderen zo hard te schreeuwen? instead of just Waarom schreeuwen de kinderen zo hard?

Both are possible, but they are not exactly the same.

• Waarom schreeuwen de kinderen zo hard? = Why are the children shouting so loudly?
• Waarom staan de kinderen zo hard te schreeuwen? also means that, but it adds a stronger sense of an action that is going on right now.

Dutch often uses verbs like staan, zitten, liggen, and lopen + te + infinitive to describe an ongoing action.

So staan ... te schreeuwen suggests:

• the action is in progress
• and sometimes also that they are literally standing while doing it

In many contexts, staan still keeps a bit of its literal meaning (to stand), but it can also function more like a progressive marker.

What is the function of te in te schreeuwen?