# Dutch/Lesson 13

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* Intermediate level: cycle 4
Lesson 13 ~ Lesson 13
Bijvoeglijke naamwoorden ~ Adjectives
* • Nathalie bezoek het museum
* • Gammar: Inflection
* • Grammar: comparative and superlative
* • Participles

## Gesprek 13

Vocabulary :
| de toerist | tourist |
| de toeriste | female tourist |
| de hoofdstad | capital |
| uitbreiden | to expand |
| de verzameling | collection, math: set |
| de zaal | hall |
| het doek | canvas, painting |
| de doek | cloth |
| links | left |
| rechts | right |
| het wonder | miracle |
Nathalie is a French tourist visiting the Dutch captital Amsterdam. She has heard a lot of good things about the local museums and decides to go look at the well known Rijksmeuseum. The extensive collection of Old Masters from the Golden Age is world famous. A young man starts a conversation with her in one of the back halls of the museum.
    Good afternoon. Have you seen that beautiful painting by Rembrandt?
          Good afternoon, which canvas do you mean? The left one or the right one?
    I mean the left one there, of which the dark parts contrast so strongly against that golden bright part in the middle.
    Isn't it fantastic how enormously Rembrandt captures your gaze?
          Yes that is true. You just keep watching and the longer you look the more the image comes to life
    Yes, it is a true miracle to see how these people, long dead, come to life again nevertheless
          It is beautiful. You love this special style very much, I believe?

## More about adjectives

Dutch adjectives are only a little more complicated than their English counterparts. An adjective generally occurs in two forms, an undeclined one and a declined one, ending in -e. Which one is used depends on a number of factors.

### Predicative versus attributive

In general the undeclined form is used for a predicate, the declined form if the adjective is used as an attribute. Japanese speakers may recall the rules about na-type adjectives for this case:
    predicative: dit huis is prachtig - this house is gorgeous
    attributive: dit prachtige huis - this beautiful house

### Gender and indefiniteness

There is an important exception to the above main rule. If an adjective is used attributively before a singular neuter word in the indefinite case, it remains undeclined:
    het mooie huis (definite)
    een mooi huis (indefinite)
    mooi werk ! (indefinite uncountable)
The 'indefinite' case includes words like geen, welk?, ieder etc.:
    dit is geen mooi huis.

### Adverbial use

Dutch adjectives can be used as adverbs without further ado, this contrasts with English where the ending "-ly" is usually required. Compare:
    attributive
       een langzame afdaling - a slow descent
    predicative
       de afdaling is langzaam - the descent is slow
    adverbial
       hij daalde langzaam af - he descended slowly

### Substantives

The adjective can be made independent as a substantive, in which case it does carry an -e in the predicate:
    dat is een mooie - that is a nice one
(Notice that Dutch does not add 'one' in this case, in contrast to Afrikaans).
The same holds for possessive pronouns, e.g.:
    dat is de mijne - that's mine.

### Fixed combinations

Sometimes the combination of adjective + noun have become a joint concept. In that case the inflection -e is dropped.
* het [bijvoeglijk naamwoord] - the adjective
* het [centraal station] - the central station
* de [klinisch phycholoog] - the clinical psychologist
* een [Amerikaans president] - an American president
Unfortunately there are many border line cases and it is hard to give fail proof rules, e.g. it is:
* de Amerikaanse president.
And it is:
* een Frans filosoof
but:
* niet een Franse, maar een Duitse filosoof.
In practice this seldom presents a serious problem for non-native speakers, as native speaker do not always agree on this point either.

### Comparatives and superlatives

In English a few adjectives form comparatives and superlatives by adding "-er" and "-(e)st". Dutch follows the same pattern.
    hoog - hoger - hoogst
    high - higher - highest
However, in contrast to English this pattern is used for almost all Dutch adjectives, even for long ones and when formidable consonant clusters form.
    interessant - interessanter - interessantst
    interesting - more interesting - most interesting
After "-r" often a dental is inserted:
    helder - helderder - helderst
For a few words ending in "-s" or "-isch" Dutch resorts to paraphrase as English does far more often;
    fantastisch - fantastischer - meest fantastisch
Comparatives and superlative receive the ending -e as all adjectives:
    de mooiste bloemen
    de meest fantastische webstek
As in English a few adjectives have irregular forms:
    goed - beter - best
    good - better - best
    weinig - minder - minst
    little/few - less/ fewer - least/ fewest
    veel - meer - meest
    much/many - more - most
The same rules for inflection apply to the comparative ans superlative as do for the positive grade, but the inflection -e is dropped in many cases when there would be a lengthy succession of schwas, e.g.:
    Een gemakkelijker(e) opdracht - an easier task
The word gemakkelijkere would have 4 schwas in a row -kə-lə-kə-rə. In this case the last one is typically dropped.

### Participles

As in English a participle behaves as an adjective and in most cases it receives the suffix "-e" as described above:
    gekookte aardappels
    kokende olie
An exception is the past participle of a strong verb that ends in "-en". It does not take an -e in attributive cases.
    gebakken aardappels
Only as a substantive does it receive "-e":
    dit is een gevangene - this is a prisoner (lit. a 'caughtee')
The adjective eigen (own) also follows this pattern. In fact, it descends from an old past participle.
    Je eigen huis. - Your own house
    Het eigen huis. - The owned house
    Het eigene van de streek - The typical quality of the region
    Deze streek heeft iets eigens - This region has something special
In contrast to English the present participle is seldom used to initiate a clause:
    The train departing from platform 6 is delayed
    De van perron 6 vertrekkende trein is vertraagd
    De trein die van perron 6 vertrekt is vertraagd.
Vertrekkende would seldom be used after trein.
    Alle treinen, vertrekkende van perron 6 -> Alle treinen die van perron 6 vertrekken.
The first construction is technically correct but sounds overly formal.
By contrast, past participles are occasionally found in such a construction, particularly if other attributes are already prefixed:
    Het uitgestrekte gebied verloren bij het verdrag van XXX werd heroverd.
    The vast territory lost at the treaty of XXX was regained by conquest.

### Materials

As in English adjectives that indicate a material end in "-en":
wollen - woolen
They are indeclinable and are only used attributively:
    de wollen muts
To express the predicate, the preposition van is used:
    de muts is van wol.

### Other endings

Dutch lost its case endings more recently than English did and it is not uncommon to encounter endings like "-er", "-en" etc. in frozen expressions:
    te goeder trouw (dat. fem. sg.) -- in good faith
    in koelen bloede (dat neut. sg.) -- in cold blood
    goedenavond! (acc masc. sg.) -- good evening!
    van ganser harte (dat. fem. sg., despite hart being neuter) -- with all my heart
    te gelegener tijd (dat fem. sg.) -- at a convenient time
The latter contrasts with ten tijde van where tijd in shown as a masculine dative... Clearly the case system was getting pretty corrupt before most of it got abolished in official spelling (1947).

#### Partitive -s

One form of case ending is still productive. After words that indicate a quantity such as iets, wat, niets. veel an adjective gets a genitive (partitive) "-s":
    iets moois - something beautiful
    veel liefs - a lot of love
    iets wikibooksachtigs - something like wikibooks
Put the (adjectives) in the following in the right form:
* De (prachtig) schilderijen van Rembrandt zijn in de (heel) wereld (beroemd)
* Er valt niets (beter) te doen
* (Goed) wijn behoeft geen krans
* Hij heeft een (goed) hart en een (sterk) arm
* Dat is een (helder),(begrijpelijk) uiteenzetting
* Is dat een (zilveren) of een (platina) ring?
* Wat een (groot) land zijn de (Verenigd) Staten toch!
* (Welk) schilderij? Bedoel je het (links) of het (rechts)?
* De (achterst) zaal is wat (kleiner) dan de (voorst).
* De (donker) delen van het doek contrasteren (sterk) met de (licht).
* De prachtige schilderijen van Rembrandt zijn in de hele wereld beroemd.
* Er valt niets beters te doen.
* Goede wijn behoeft geen krans.
* Hij heeft een goed hart en een sterke arm.
* Dat is een heldere, begrijpelijke uiteenzetting.
* Is dat een zilveren of een platina ring?
* Wat een groot land zijn de Verenigde Staten toch!
* Welk schilderij? Bedoel je het linkse of het rechtse?
* De achterste zaal is wat kleiner dan de voorste.
* De donkere delen van het doek contrasteren sterk met de lichte.