A question from a friend learning Dutch left me stumped

by **Guustaaf** » August 18th, 2011, 3:03 pm

got a question from a penpal learning dutch that I don't know the answer to, I hope you guys can help me.

In these two sentences:

Ik heb een nieuwe laptop gekocht, hij is heel snel.

Ik heb een nieuwe laptop gekocht, het is een cadeau.

Why is it 'hij' in the first case and 'het' in the second? I know by 'feeling' what is right (or at least I'm 99% sure)but I can't think of the rule that is followed here.

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by **ngonyama** » August 18th, 2011, 3:08 pm

Guustaaf wrote:got a question from a penpal learning dutch that I don't know the answer to, I hope you guys can help me.

In these two sentences:

Ik heb een nieuwe laptop gekocht, hij is heel snel.

Ik heb een nieuwe laptop gekocht, het is een cadeau.

Why is it 'hij' in the first case and 'het' in the second? I know by 'feeling' what is right (or at least I'm 99% sure)but I can't think of the rule that is followed here.

In the first case "hij" clearly refers back to the laptop. In the second case that is not so. "Het" is more of a dummy subject that points forward to "het cadeau". Dummy subjects are pretty common, just think of sentences like "Het regent", "het zijn schurken" etc.