This page contains links and information about inflection in the Dutch language.
Dutch nouns are either masculine, feminine or neuter gender. Masculine and feminine are not distinguished for inanimate nouns by many speakers, and are then grouped together as a single common gender. Masculine and feminine use the definite article de, and neuter words use the definite article het. The indefinite article is een for all genders.
The gender of a noun is generally unpredictable from its spelling and has to be learned by heart, although there are some rules:
In general, the plural is formed by appending -en or -s to the noun. The ending -s is used for nouns ending in certain suffixes and for many loanwords.
When adding -en, vowel length is preserved by doubling the consonant for short vowels, and removing one vowel for long vowels. Furthermore, the unvoiced fricatives s and f generally become voiced z and v, respectively.
Certain loanwords (mainly from Greek) ending in f do not become voiced:
When the noun ends in ns, rs, or ls, the voicing is unpredictable:
Some nouns with short vowels get a long vowel in the plural when -en is added, turning e.g. into or into . For some nouns, the vowel becomes e.
A dozen or so words take the compound ending -eren (historically a double plural):
The original single plural is still used in compounds:
Nouns ending in -ee or -ie use diaeresis to indicate that the suffixed -en is a separate syllable. When the stress is on the penultimate syllable, only a single n is used:
The words koe and vlo introduce a gliding vowel to make pronunciation easier:
Nouns ending in a long single vowel get -'s appended, to preserve the vowel length:
Many nouns ending in unstressed -e may take either -s or -n as their plural:
Many Latin or Greek loans retain their original plurals, although the constructions described above may also be used:
Most Dutch nouns can also have diminutives. The diminutive is formed by adding the suffix -tje (or one of its varieties -etje, -je, -pje, -kje depending in the preceding sound). In many dialects the suffix -ke or -ken is also used. Diminutive nouns are always neuter and the plural of a diminutive is always formed with -s.
For words ending in ing, if the emphasis is on the penultimate syllable, -kje is used:
For nouns ending in a long single vowel, the vowel is doubled to preserve vowel length:
Dutch adjectives generally possess three forms:
The above holds for the positive degree, but the rules describing the use of the three forms also apply for the comparative and superlative degree that are regularly formed with the suffixes -er and -st.
Periphrase of comparative and superlative using meer ("more") and meest ("most") is possible, but only used in some cases, especially when the resulting word would be long or difficult to pronounce. As an example, adjectives with the common ending "-isch" use the periphrase with "meest" for the superlative ("democratisch" - "democratischer"/ "meer democratisch" - "meest democratisch"). The same goes for adjectives with a base form already ending in "-st" ("vast" - "vaster" - "meest vast"). Using the "meer"/"meest" periphrase with shorter words (not ending in "-st") is not correct standard Dutch, although it seems to be on the increase, likely under the influence of English. Instead of "mooiste" ("most beautiful"), the (incorrect) periphrase "meest mooie" is now sometimes heard.
The suffix "-e" appears in every attributive form, except in singular indefinite neuter.
| masculine & feminine & plural |
neuter | |
| indefinite | een grote kast | een groot huis |
| definite | de grote kast de grote kasten de grote huizen |
het grote huis |
The inflection "-e" does not appear when the adjective is used predicatively (i.e. in combination with a copula):
Dutch does use the inflected form when the adjective is substantivated to a noun:
If such a substantive refers to persons it takes -en in the plural:
The above rules are general. The "-e" suffix is sometimes dropped
Adjectives denoting materials often end in -en (wollen, ivoren) and are immutable.
After words indicating a quantity like veel, iets, weinig etc. an adjective can also take the partitive (genitive) suffix "-s":
This also holds for the comparative:
Adverbs are not inflected separately in Dutch. They often have comparative and superlative forms, formed with the same -er and -st endings as the adjectives.
Adverbs can be formed from adjectives using the base form of the adjective, no additional suffix (such as English -ly) is used. This means that any adjective is implicitly an adverb as well. Adverbs never get the inflection suffix "-e" like adjectives do, however.
Many Dutch adverbs descend from old absolute genitives and therefore tend to end in -s:
A special group uses the diminutive -je in combination with -s to form an adverb from an adjective:
The ending -en is sometimes added in combinations of prepositions and prepositional adverbs:
Many, but not all, prepositions like in, op, buiten etc. form a prepositional adverb that may be combined with verbs, creating a separable verb. Most prepositional adverbs are identical with the preposition. Exceptions:
Some prepositional adverbs do not have a corresponding preposition like heen or af. This also holds for some of the compound ones like achterom. In prepositional usage the compound dissolves into its components "achter" and "om".
Most prepositional adverbs can also be used to form pronominal adverbs like hierheen or erbuiten. These often replace pronouns in combination with a preposition and they are usually separable as well.
This participle is not used as much as in English because it is seldom used to form a continuous tense. Instead Dutch uses
However, the participle is in regular use as an attributive adjective:
And also as an adverb:
The present participle is formed infinitive + d, e.g. lezend (reading). The inflected form is infinitive + de, e.g. lezende. When using the present participle as adjective, use the inflection rules as explained at #Adjectives. One notable exception unique to the present participle is, that when used in a predicative or adverbial sense, the inflected form (-e) may also be used. This is similar to e.g. Swedish usage and has the same origin.
This participle is used to form perfect tenses and passive voice, much like the English one. It can also be used as an adjective.
If the participle is from a weak verb it ends in -t or -d and is inflected as an adjective. However if it belongs to a strong or mixed verb it ends in -en, and remains uninflected in attributive use (like all adjectives ending in -en). This does not apply for a few monosyllabic verbs like doen and gaan, whose past participle forms do not end in -en.
When used as a substantive, inflection does occur, however:
The formation of the past participle and the past tense differs depending on what class the verb belongs to.
Morphologically speaking, there are:
In addition Dutch has separable verbs, e.g. toestaan (toe- + staan) becomes hij staat toe in the third-person singular. In subclauses, these verbs are not separated: ik wil dat hij dit toestaat.
Note that there also exist verbs with prefixes which are not separable. You can mostly distinguish them by looking to the place of the stress: if the stress falls on the prefix, it is normally separable, and vice versa. E.g. there's a verb óverzien (ik zie óver, in subclause: dat ik óverzie) and a verb overzíén (ik overzíé). The meaning of these homographs-by-emphasis can differ considerably.
Most of the classes above contain both base verbs and separable and inseparable derivatives, e.g.:
These three all belong to the same Class 1 of the strong verbs, but sometimes the class differs:
As in English many verbs are transitive. The active perfect takes hebben as an auxiliary.
They form a passive voice using the past participle. Its auxiliaries are worden for the imperfect tenses and zijn for the perfect ones.
Notice that the use of zijn and to be does not correspond.
Dutch does have ditransitives, i.e. verbs that take both a direct and an indirect object.
Although this is a pretty recent development and not recognized in all grammars. it is possible to make both objects the subject of a new sentence. In contrast to English, Dutch uses two different auxiliaries for this purpose: worden for the passive voice and krijgen for an 'indirect passive' one:
There are really two kinds of these in Dutch that differ in their choice of perfect auxiliary.
These verbs express an autonomous process or a movement. They do not have any passive forms and no clear agent. In the perfect tenses they take zijn.
The auxiliaries doen and laten are used to make causitives (transitives) out of ergatives:
The auxiliary raken can be used to make an ergative construction from transitive participles or other adjectives.
These verbs have a clear agent but no direct object. They do have an impersonal passive voice, usually initiated by the dummy pronoun (locative adverb) er. Their perfect tenses take hebben:
Reflexive verbs in Dutch take hebben as their perfect auxiliary. There are two kinds:
Mandatory reflexives can only be accompanied by the reflexive pronouns me, je, zich etc.
Mandatory reflexives either do not occur without zich etc. or the verb has a very different meaning without them:
Optional reflexives can also take zich etc. but more usually take pronouns with the suffix -zelf: mezelf, zichzelf etc.
The four possibilities differ in amount of emphasis:
Impersonal verbs only occur with the indefinite pronoun het. They take hebben as their perfect auxiliary and lack passive voice. In modern Dutch they are mostly limited to meteorological phenomena:
Impersonals were numerous in Middle Dutch, a few remain:
Verbs like mogen, kunnen, willen, moeten are irregular in Dutch as they partly descend from preterit-presents. They take hebben if at all they occur in the perfect and then often replace their past participle by the infinitive:
The main copula is zijn or its alter ego wezen, but there are a few others like blijken, lijken, worden, voorkomen, dunken etc. They are often strong verbs and some of them take zijn as their perfect auxiliary.
These verbs are used in the formation of the tenses, voices and aspects of other verbs.
Links
| Personal pronouns | ||||||
| Subject | Object | |||||
| Full forms | Mute forms | Emphatic forms | Full forms | Mute forms | Emphatic forms | |
| First-person singular | ik | ’k | ikke, ikzelf | mij | me | mijzelf |
| Second-person singular | jij | je | jijzelf | jou | je | jouzelf |
| Second-person singular dialectal | gij | ge | gijzelf | u | - | uzelf |
| Second-person singular polite | u | - | uzelf | u | - | uzelf |
| Third-person singular masculine | hij | ie | hijzelf | hem | ’m | hemzelf |
| Third-person singular feminine | zij | ze | zijzelf | haar | ze, ’r, d'r h'r | haarzelf |
| Third-person singular neuter | het | ’t | - | het | ’t | - |
| First-person plural | wij | we | wijzelf | ons | - | onszelf |
| Second-person plural | jullie | je | (jullie zelf) | jullie | je | (jullie zelf) |
| Second-person plural dialectal | gij | ge | gijzelf | u | - | uzelf |
| Second-person plural polite | u | - | uzelf | u | - | uzelf |
| Third-person plural | zij | ze | zijzelf | hen (accusative)
hun (dative) |
ze | henzelf |
| Reflexive pronouns | ||
| Full pronouns | Emphatic pronouns | |
| First-person singular | me | mezelf |
| Second-person singular | je | jezelf |
| Second-person singular dialectal | u | uzelf |
| Second-person singular polite | u, zich | uzelf, zichzelf |
| Third-person singular masculine | zich | zichzelf |
| Third-person singular feminine | zich | zichzelf |
| Third-person singular neuter | zich | zichzelf |
| First-person plural | ons | onszelf |
| Second-person plural | je | jezelf |
| Second-person plural dialectal | u | uzelf |
| Second-person plural polite | u, zich | uzelf, zichzelf |
| Third-person plural | zich | zichzelf |
| Possessive pronouns | |||
| Full forms | Mute forms | Independent | |
| First-person singular | mijn | m'n | mijne |
| Second-person singular | jouw | je | jouwe |
| Second-person singular dialectal & polite | uw | - | uwe |
| Third-person singular masculine & neuter | zijn | z'n | zijne |
| Third-person singular feminine | haar | 'r, d'r | hare |
| First-person plural | ons (onze) | - | onze |
| Second-person plural | jullie | je | - |
| Second-person plural dialectal & polite | uw | - | uwe |
| Third-person plural | hun | - | hunne |