Talk:Dutch grammar

message: I don't think it's necessary to mention abbreviations (is this the right term?) like 't, z'n, d'r in an outline of the Dutch grammar. In written Dutch they aren't used a lot. I think the way it's done now could confuse people. It's probably better to mention them seperately. Guaka 18:46, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  

message: A number of weak verbs such as denken show the irregularity associated with Rückumlaut: see the article on umlaut:
*denken, ik dachte (to think)
Last time I checked, the past tense of denken was ik dacht, which is simply a strong verb. I don't quite get the sentence above it either, maybe my knowledge of my own language is limited, but I think it can be completely removed. - DodgeK
:No, this sentence is correct.  Weak is not the same as regular - see the article on weak (grammatical term).  denken forms its past tense by adding a dental (-t), therefore it is weak.  See the article Germanic weak verb.  Strong verbs show the vowel change associated with ablaut, but the vowel change in denken is umlaut, which is quite a different thing.--Doric Loon 05:16, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sterke (strong) verbs change there vowels wenn there written in past tense zwakke(weak) verbs don't. And past tensen of denken (to think) is dacht, not dachte. 82.74.142.27 19:09, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  weak verbs showing irregularity? 

message: *In a command, the verb comes first, followed by 'we' if taking to a group with the speaker included, followed by the modifiers and the rest of the sentence.
I don't understand what is meant by this rule. Who does? Sixtus 20:44, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "talking" instead of "taking maybe?" Freako 13:26, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably, but even so it remains gibberish to me. I can't think of a single Dutch sentence satisfying this description. I'll remove it until someone who actually understands this rewrites it for the rest of the world (or the tiny part of it interested in Dutch commands). AvB ÷ talk 19:02, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Command 

message: The article stated that Dutch nouns are marked for definiteness. As far as I understand 'marking' and 'definiteness', that's not correct, so I removed it. The placing of the comment did make me suspect that it was meant in the context of Flemish Dutch. If this was the case, could someone please elaborate? Junes 21:32, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dutch nouns marked for definiteness? 

message: Okay, no offense taken. Now, let's see if we can find some middle ground. I like the original text better, because it was much more concise and was stylistically better. Here it is:
: In Dutch there originally were three genders, masculine, feminine and neuter. Masculine and feminine nouns are often also called de-words, and neuter nouns are often called het-words, as a result of the definite article these nouns are accompanied with. For all practical purposes, at least in the Netherlands, the masculine and feminine gender have merged into one common gender. Few native speakers in the Netherlands are aware which nouns are masculine and which are feminine, and even in the newer editions of the Van Dale dictionary a large number of nouns are only classified as a de-word, without any statement whether the noun is masculine or feminine. In Belgium, however, awareness of the distinction between feminine and masculine nouns is much stronger, and still plays a (slight) grammatical role.
I don't see much wrong with this. It says that there were originally three genders (true), and that for all practical purposes, two of those have merged into one common gender. We could make it "most". We could add the exceptions. We might exclude the dictionary statement, which I personally find hard to believe and is not very relevant anyway. We might also remove the "(slight)" at the end. Then we'd get something like this:
: In Dutch there originally were three genders, masculine, feminine and neuter. Masculine and feminine nouns are often also called de-words, and neuter nouns are often called het-words, as a result of the definite article these nouns are accompanied with. For most practical purposes, at least in the Netherlands, the masculine and feminine gender have merged into one common gender (except in some formal registers, particularly in writing). Few native speakers in the Netherlands are aware which nouns are masculine and which are feminine. In Belgium, however, awareness of the distinction between feminine and masculine nouns is much stronger, and still plays a grammatical role.
Now, is that acceptable? If not, what is wrong with it specifically? Also, how useful is the long list of masculine and feminine nouns to potential readers of this article? Junes 16:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I fully support. Ucucha (talk) 16:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:     Hello. I'm from Flanders and the three gender system is far from dead here, I don't agree with the statement that it is "rapidly dissappearing" at all. The difference between masculine and femine words is pretty appararent as (in the spoken language only) they have different articles: masculine words use "de(n)" and "ne(n)" (e.g. den aap, ne stoel), whereas feminine words use "de" and "een" (e.g. een kast, een deur). Another example is that possessive pronouns inflect. For example, we would say "The regering komt terug op haar beslissing", because both "regering" and "beslissing" are feminine, on the other hand, it is "Zet de tafel maar op hare kop", because "tafel" is feminine, but "kop" is masculine and therefore you should use hare and not haar. Or "De stoel zijne poot is afgebroken", because both "stoel" and "poot" are masculine you should use zijne and not zijn. We've never been thought rules about which word has which gender, because it is used consistently. I don't know why they teach that words with a physical nature are supposed to be masculine, but in Flanders we say "De deur, ze klemt". (For the record: take any Dutch dictionary and it will say that "deur" is ... feminine! So technically, it is a 100% correct!).
Junes 16:50, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the confirmation. As the second sentence is grammatically impossible for me (I'm Dutch), this clearly indicates that this is a grammatical difference. Ucucha (talk) 17:32, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: If you are able to convince us, that's perfect. Otherwise you use an ad authoritatem argument. Ucucha (talk) 18:57, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: In Dutch there are three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Masculine and feminine nouns are often also called de-words, and neuter nouns are often called het-words, as a result of the definite article with which these nouns are accompanied. Few native speakers in the Netherlands are aware which nouns are masculine and which are feminine, though, and many words are considered both masculine and feminine. In Belgium, however, awareness of the distinction between feminine and masculine nouns is much stronger, and still plays a grammatical role in the Dutch spoken in Flanders and the Flemish dialects.
Sixtus 20:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compromise version 

message: May I also propose to move the two screens full of text about rules for determination of the gender of nouns to a page Gender in Dutch grammar, so we can keep this article more comprehensive? Thijs! 21:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I support the move, because as it is now this aspect takes too much space relative to its importance.−Woodstone 22:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Rules about gender

message: The part about the genitive in Dutch bothers me: it states that one shouldn't use the genitive because some people make grammar mistakes? What kind of bullshit is that. I certainly think we should remove the grammar mistake from wikipedia. There still is a genitive in Dutch, although it is right that it isn't used very often. But de geschiedenis der Nederlandse film is just wrong. It is true that some people might write this, but these people also write "ik wordt" instead of "ik word", this doesn't mean that we should stop using the verb "worden"!
Moreover the genitive of people's names is used very often: Jans boek (Jan's book); het boek van Jan is just incorrect.
Govert Miereveld 19:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Genitive in Dutch

message: Sourced content has been deleted twice today from the Personal and possessive pronouns section by 86.39.64.102 / 86.39.64.74, in favor of an earlier revision by 134.184.49.145 (18:47, 23 May). Please discuss here and provide appropriate sources before making the same unmotivated edits again. CapnPrep 22:07, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal pronouns dispute 

message: I don't want to rekindle the gender discussion, but the following does not make sense: "This notion of commonality between masculine and feminine nouns in Dutch is supported by the fact that the gender of Dutch nouns can usually only be found by looking them up in a dictionary, although there are some rules to help determining the gender of many words."  The same holds for German, in which genders are very actively distinguished.  What is the sentence supposed to mean?  Can it be deleted? 129.27.237.29 19:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Since noone objected, I have removed the passage 129.27.202.101 13:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gender again 

message: The definite articles list is not complete.  It has missed out the possessive/genitive article.  This is best seen in the Dutch name for the King of the Belgians, De Koning der Belgen.  I don't know if all grammatical genders have a possessive article, but it certainly seems the plural does.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.79.193.145 (talk) 14:06, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The status of the genitive in current Dutch is discussed right before the section on definite articles, with examples. The complete paradigms can be found in the article Dutch declension. CapnPrep (talk) 16:53, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definite article 

message: The section has on Mon Jan 26 09:10:07 CET 2009: 
Pronominal adverbs
Pronouns in Dutch work differently depending on whether or not they appear with a preposition. When they are used as the subject or object of a verb (without a preposition), they are chosen according to the grammatical gender of the noun they replace—i.e. hij/hem/'m for masculine (or common gender) nouns, zij/haar/d'r for feminine nouns, and het/'t for neuter nouns (the reduced forms are preferred when referring to inanimate objects):
    * Zie je [de stoel]/[de deur]/[het broodje]? ("Do you see the chair/the door/the sandwich?")
    * Ik zie 'm/(d)'r/'t. (lit. "I see him/her/it.")
The error is that in standard Dutch (at least in the Netherlands) feminine nouns are only recognized as  feminine nouns in the grammatical sense when they refer to real human or animal females - not something like a door. I'm a native speaker, and wouldn't know if "de deur" was masculine or feminine even if my life depended on it. Zie je de deur? Ja, ik zie 'm.
Perhaps that in the Netherlands in very formal written language (or perhaps when spoken by the Queen) one may make distinctions  between grammatical masculine/feminine gender with regard to certain words - but AFAIK that's as far as it goes. 
Maybe things are slightly different in Belgium, so, either the section contains an error, or should indicate that the example is for Belgium only. --Kornelis (talk) 08:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The question of grammatical gender in different varieties of Dutch is discussed earlier in the article, and in other articles, so it's not really necessary to bring up the issue again in this section. I changed the example to use the word tafel instead of deur. I don't know if that changes anything for you, but tafel is explicitly used as a feminine noun, and referred to as ze in the ANS §3.3.3(5). And they make it clear that this belongs to "standard Dutch" just as much as your usage. CapnPrep (talk) 12:50, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I followed your link to ANS, and learned that indeed in "the south" (Belgium presumably) this may be acceptable usage. I'm inclined to think that it still merits a note, but if I read the history correctly, the article has or is being edited to that effect already. BTW this is me getting used to the idea that Flemish is Standard Dutch :)--Kornelis (talk) 10:08, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in section Pronominal adverbs 

message: I just removed this new section:
:In the eyes of the Dutch a house with three floors consists of the "begane grond" (ground floor), "eerste verdieping" en "tweede verdieping". What the Americans would call a second floor is the first floor ("eerste verdieping") to the Dutch.
Is this really such a notable feature of Dutch grammar that it deserves a section on a par with "Word order" and "Verbs"? If it goes back in the article somewhere (and not, for example, in Wikibooks, or Wikitravel), it should at least be sourced. CapnPrep (talk) 21:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Section removed again. The source you added is inadequate; it doesn't say anything about what the ground floor is called in Dutch, and it doesn't point out the differences with respect to the American numbering scheme. But the real problem is that is just not a notable aspect of Dutch grammar. At most it might deserve a footnote in the section on ordinal numbers (which does not exist yet), but even then I would be tempted to delete it. The differences in usage world-wide are discussed in the article Storey#Numbering; you could add information about Dutch there. CapnPrep (talk) 21:04, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Counting floors 

message: According to the article it is more common to express numbers up to 10000 in terms of hundreds, as opposed to a combination of thousands and hundreds.  Is this actually true?
(I'm satisfied that both forms are acceptable, and that hundreds are probably more common up to 2000.  I've not been able to find any evidence that hundreds are more common between 2000 and 10000, and the only citable example I've found - from A Reference Grammar of Dutch - gives 2576=tweeduizendvijfhonderdzesenzeventig.  For information the limit is 2000 in British English and Afrikaans, but 10000 in American English.)
--Dr Graham D Shaw (talk) 06:50, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: now that you mention it I'm not sure, I added that section as it seemed correct at the time(and it probably still is). Although I, as a native dutch, must say that in your example I would personally use 2576=vijfentwintighonderdzesenzeventig as the other form sound cumbersome to me. The dutch wikipedia article on numbers as well as the book: "Dubbel Dutch: a practical guide for foreign students of Dutch" seems to support this being done up to 10 000. however, this might not necessarily be the case for Flemish Dutch.62.238.182.126 (talk) 02:10, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Counting in hundreds 

message: "cases have largely fallen out of use", does this mean that in some dialects case is marked, or that it was used recently, and perhaps some dutch speakers recognize them? Or does it mean that dutch no longer has case, like in english?
: They are no longer used in everyday speech or in writing, but they remain in some set phrases, and will generally be recognised and understood by most speakers. CodeCat (talk) 02:03, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: But they are still very much alive in personal pronouns. The genitive is still commonly used for nouns denoting living beings. −Woodstone (talk) 15:57, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  The "genitive" is only really used for proper names, only rarely for normal nouns. And the suffix acts more like a clitic as in English, as it always attaches to the last word in a noun phrase. So it's hard to really call it a genitive. CodeCat (talk) 18:32, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

text:  Also, while surviving only in the margins of the Dutch language, the genitive case is still productive: . In other words, new formations still occur; the usage is not limited to set phrases. Morgengave (talk) 22:50, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  wording of cases 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I added a section on modal particles, similar to the one in German grammar, however this one links to the main page on it instead of a separate page for Dutch grammar, since all information on the dutch modal particle on the english wikipedia is on that page. I've done it this way, since I'm a bit hesitant to make a separate "Dutch modal particle" page. (because then there could be a separate page for that for 8+ languages). SteenDesAanstoots22 (talk) 13:01, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modal particles