Grammatica, episode two. Dutch has four small words for linking a cause to its consequence. Where English just says 'so' and 'because', Dutch makes you choose - based on which direction you're pointing, and on what that choice does to your word order.
Two of them point forward, to the result. First, dus - 'so', or 'therefore'. It's the cousin of English 'thus'. It rains, therefore I stay home.
Het regent, dus ik blijf thuis.
Het regent, dus ik blijf thuis. — Listen to the order after dus.
Subject first, then verb. Ik blijf. Normal order - nothing moved.
The second forward-pointer is daarom, 'that's why'. Daarom is an adverb - a word that modifies rather than names - and when an adverb starts a Dutch sentence, it flips the verb in front of the subject. That flip is called inversion.
Het regent. Daarom blijf ik thuis.
Het regent. Daarom blijf ik thuis. — Blijf ik - not ik blijf.
The verb jumped ahead of the subject, because daarom took first place.
Now the other two, the ones pointing backward to the cause. Omdat means 'because', and it's a subordinating word - it demotes its clause, and it throws the verb all the way to the end of that clause.
Ik blijf thuis omdat het regent.
Ik blijf thuis omdat het regent. — Regent - rains - sitting at the very end.
That tail position is the signature of omdat.
And want also means 'because'. But want is a coordinating word - it joins two equals - and it leaves the verb exactly where it normally sits.
Ik blijf thuis, want het regent.
Ik blijf thuis, want het regent.
Here the clause is so short that the verb happens to land in the same place either way. Stretch it out and the difference shows itself:
Omdat ik moe ben - verb last. Want ik ben moe - verb second. So there's your fork. Dus and daarom point at the result. Omdat and want point at the cause. And the word order is the giveaway: omdat buries its verb, want doesn't. Same rain, same staying home. Dutch just makes you say which end you're looking from.
Today's Brueghel proverb.
Wie een kuil graaft voor een ander, valt er zelf in.
Wie een kuil graaft voor een ander, valt er zelf in.
Literally: he who digs a pit for another falls into it himself. Meaning: schemes rebound on the schemer. And it's shaped like today's lesson - wie een kuil graaft is a subordinate clause, so its verb goes to the end, and then comes the consequence. Example:
Hij loog tegen zijn baas, dus nu heeft hij geen werk meer. — He lied to his boss, so now he has no job.
Cause, then dus, then consequence.
That's episode two.
Doei doei!
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