I have a question, in Dutch class we had a few words mixed up and we had to build a sentence with that, I had this sentence:
Dinah hugged her and gave her a kiss .
My Dutch teacher says that sentence is wrong , but my old Dutch teacher says it is and now there is doubt so I wonder if that sentence is correct or not .
Answer
Hi Cennet,
Whether a sentence is ‘correct’ can depend on several things:
1. of the extent to which the sentence follows the language rules
from that point of view there is nothing wrong with your sentence:
in ’embraced her’ you use a full form of the third person singular feminine and in your second part ‘she gave’ you use a reduced or shortened form of the same person; so you keep referring to the same person and everyone will understand you
2. how often the sentence is used by other people
from that point of view I’d say your sentence isn’t right, because not many people will say or write that sentence (on Google, for example, you won’t get a single hit); rather you will find something like:
Dinah hugged her and kissed her
It is indeed a bit strange to use the full form first and then immediately use the shortened vrom. I don’t think Dutch has many examples of that.
Perhaps your teacher expected you to write the following?
She gave Dinah a kiss and hugged her
or
She hugged Dinah and kissed her
Those two sentences will be used more often in Dutch.
Can you figure this out?
Sonia Vandepitte
University College Ghent – Ghent University
Answered by
Dr Sonia Vandepitte
translation studies linguistics interpreting multilingual communication
http://www.ugent.be
.