Advanced Relative Clauses
Advanced Relative Clauses
Beyond die and dat, Dutch has a set of relative forms for the cases where a simple pronoun will not do: wat after indefinites, wie after prepositions, waarvan and waarbij for whole situations, and wier or wiens in formal writing.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
wat after alles, iets, niets and after a whole clause
alles wat ik weet / Hij kwam te laat, wat me stoorde.
everything I know / He arrived late, which annoyed me.
When the thing being described is indefinite — alles, iets, niets, het enige — the relative pronoun is wat, not dat. wat also refers back to an entire preceding clause, matching English 'which' in that use: ..., wat me stoorde. Using dat in either position is a common slip, since both translate as 'that' or 'which'.
waarvan, waarbij, waardoor refer to a preposition plus antecedent
een boek waarvan ik de titel vergeten ben
a book whose title I've forgotten
For possession and prepositional relationships with things, Dutch fuses waar- with the preposition: waarvan ('of which'), waarbij ('at which'), waardoor ('through which, as a result of which'), waarmee ('with which'). These do the job English handles with 'whose' for inanimate nouns or with a stranded preposition. In formal writing they can also open a clause commenting on what came before: ..., waardoor het project vertraagd werd.
wiens and wier: formal 'whose' for people
de schrijver wiens boek ik las
the writer whose book I read
For people, formal Dutch has genitive relatives — wiens for masculine and neuter, wier for feminine and plural. They belong to written register; in speech, Dutch restructures the sentence instead, usually with van wie: de schrijver van wie ik het boek las. Recognizing wiens and wier when reading matters more than producing them.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- everything that
- English
- something that
- English
- the only thing that
- English
- of which
- English
- at / in which
- English
- as a result of which
- English
- in which
- English
- whose / of whom
- English
- whose (formal)
- English
- to disturb / annoy
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