Paired Conjunctions
Paired Conjunctions
Dutch balances ideas with pairs: niet alleen ... maar ook, zowel ... als, noch ... noch, of ... of. The second half is obligatory, and with some pairs the word order shifts in ways English never requires.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
niet alleen ... maar ook, with inversion when fronted
Niet alleen is het duur, maar het werkt ook slecht.
Not only is it expensive, but it also works badly.
When niet alleen opens the sentence it fills first position, so the verb follows immediately: Niet alleen is het duur. English does exactly the same thing — 'not only is it expensive' — which makes this one of the rare places where the inversion feels natural to an English speaker. Note that ook in the second half usually sits in the middle field rather than next to maar.
zowel ... als and noch ... noch
zowel in Nederland als in het buitenland / noch de een noch de ander
both in the Netherlands and abroad / neither the one nor the other
zowel ... als means 'both ... and' and joins two parallel elements, not two clauses. noch ... noch is the negative pair, 'neither ... nor', and it carries the negation itself, so no niet or geen is added. Both are somewhat formal; in speech Dutch prefers en ... ook and geen ... en geen.
of ... of and hetzij ... hetzij for alternatives
Of je komt, of je blijft thuis. / hetzij per post, hetzij per e-mail
Either you come or you stay home. / either by post or by email
Doubling of gives 'either ... or', and each half keeps main-clause order because of is coordinating. The formal variant hetzij ... hetzij belongs to written instructions and regulations. There is also enerzijds ... anderzijds for 'on the one hand ... on the other', which structures a balanced argument rather than offering a choice.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- not only ... but also
- English
- both ... and
- English
- neither ... nor
- English
- either ... or
- English
- either ... or (formal)
- English
- on the one hand
- English
- on the other hand
- English
- just as little / neither
- English
- on the contrary
- English
- abroad
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