Grammatica, episode 6: scheidbare werkwoorden ============================================= EN: Grammatica, episode six. Scheidbare werkwoorden - separable verbs. A Dutch verb that comes in two pieces, and the pieces spend most of their time at opposite ends of the sentence. English has these too, we just don't notice: pick up, throw away, call back. Dutch does the same thing, more systematically, and further apart. EN: Take opstaan, to get up. It's op, a partikel (particle), glued to staan, to stand. Say it as a plain statement and the two come apart - the particle goes to the very end of the clause: NL: Ik sta om zeven uur op. EN: I get up at seven. Sta near the front, op at the back, and everything else - the time, the place, the object - crammed in between them. Another: NL: Ik bel je morgen na het eten op. EN: I'll call you tomorrow after dinner. Opbellen, split around six words. EN: This is why Dutch listening is hard at first. The particle carries a lot of the meaning, and it arrives last. Aankomen is to arrive, meekomen is to come along, terugkomen is to come back - and until that final syllable lands you don't actually know which verb you heard. Listen to the same opening, three different endings: NL: Hij komt om zes uur aan. Hij komt om zes uur mee. Hij komt om zes uur terug. EN: He arrives at six. He's coming along at six. He's coming back at six. Dutch makes you wait for the point. There's no fixing this - you just have to stop trying to understand the sentence before it's finished. EN: Now the good news. The verb only splits in a main clause with the verb in second position. In two common situations it stays in one piece. First, after a modal verb like moeten, kunnen, willen - the whole thing goes to the end, unbroken: NL: Ik moet om zeven uur opstaan. EN: I have to get up at seven. Opstaan, intact, at the back. Second, in a subordinate clause - one introduced by omdat, dat, als, and their friends - the verb also goes to the end and also stays whole: NL: Omdat ik om zeven uur opsta, ga ik vroeg naar bed. EN: Because I get up at seven, I go to bed early. EN: The past participle is where it gets pleasing. The ge- doesn't go in front of the whole verb. It goes into the seam, between the particle and the stem: NL: opgestaan. opgebeld. meegenomen. EN: Got up. Called. Brought along. Op-ge-staan, not ge-opstaan. Once you've seen it, you can build the participle of any separable verb you meet, including ones you've never heard. EN: Same trick with te, the Dutch to of an infinitive. It also goes into the seam: NL: Ik probeer vroeg op te staan. EN: I try to get up early. Three words - op, te, staan - where English has two. EN: Not every prefixed verb splits. There's a fixed list of onscheidbare - inseparable - prefixes: be-, ge-, ver-, ont-, her-, and er-. These never come apart, and they never take ge- in the participle either. NL: Ik begrijp het. Ik heb het begrepen. EN: I understand it. I've understood it. Begrepen, not gebegrepen. Compare that with a separable verb and the difference is stark. The rule of thumb: if the prefix is a word in its own right - op, aan, uit, mee, terug, in, door, na, voor, samen - it separates. If it's a fragment that means nothing alone - be, ver, ont, her - it doesn't. EN: And there's a way to hear it, which is more reliable than the list. Separable verbs are stressed on the particle. Inseparable verbs are stressed on the stem. Listen: NL: OPstaan. beGRIJpen. EN: The stress tells you what the grammar is going to do. A native speaker isn't consulting a table of prefixes - they're hearing where the weight falls. Eventually you will too. EN: Today's Brueghel proverb, with a separable verb hiding in it. NL: Zorg dat daar geen zwarte hond tussen komt. NL: Zorg dat daar geen zwarte hond tussen komt. EN: Literally: make sure no black dog gets in between. Meaning: watch out that nothing spoils it. The verb is tussenkomen, to intervene - and note it sits in a dat-clause, at the end, in the split shape the old proverb preserves. Modern Dutch would more often say ertussen komen. Example: NL: Het gaat goed, als er tenminste geen zwarte hond tussen komt. EN: It's going well, as long as nothing gets in the way. EN: That's episode six. NL: Doei doei!