Position of 'niet' in a sentence

[rishris]

Hi there,

I am struggling with the position of 'niet' in a sentence. I want to write that 'I can't submit the assignment on Wednesday'. The sentence that I came up with was 'Ik kan op woensdag de opdracht niet inleveren'. But the right answer was 'Ik kan de opdracht niet op woensdag inleveren'. I am trying to understand whether the sentence I came up with is wrong and why.

Thanks in advance.

[BrutallyFrank]

Your sentence was not wrong, but maybe not as common as the other one. There's also a slight difference.

In your sentence you put the time factor before the assigment. That means that the time factor has some emphasis on it, because the next question would be: wanneer dan wel? (when can you submit it?)

In the 'correct' sentence that sequence is reversed and in this case it means something like: the assigment is not ready to be submitted OR I can't submit it that day (although less obvious than your sentence).


You can find more info here: https://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=WordOrder.46

[LeSNT2]

Like BrutallyFrank said: Your sentence isn't wrong, it's just not neutral. For neutral sentences there are rules for the word order. If you want to emphasize something, you can start the sentence with that part or place that part before the other parts in a neutral sentence. Normally the order is:

subject + finite verb + time + manner + place + other verbs.

Of course only if you have all those parts, if you don't have a place for example you just skip it.

There are also rules for the place of 'niet' in a sentence:
Niet stands before:
1. a preposition (Ik woon niet in Amsterdam.)
2. an adjective (Nederlands is niet moeilijk.)
3. words like 'vaak', 'elke dag' (often, every day) (Ik eet niet elke dag vlees.)
4. an indefinite cardinal number like 'veel', 'weinig', 'genoeg' (a lot, few, enough) (Ik heb niet genoeg geld om een auto te kopen.)

Niet stands after:
1. a finite verb (Hij rookt niet.)
2. de/het + noun, mijn/jouw/zijn/haar + noun, deze/die/dit/dat + noun (Ik heb het boek niet gelezen.)
3. words like 'vandaag', ''s morgens' (today, in the mornings) (Ik hoef vandaag niet te werken.)

You can use this 'schedule' for the placement of 'niet'. Like this:

Ik kan de opdracht op woensdag inleveren.

1. There is a preposition (op) so it should be before 'op'.
2. There is no adjective.
3. There is no word like 'vaak'.
4. There is no indefinite cardinal number.
5. There is a finite verb (kan) so it should be after 'kan'.
6. There is a de-word + noun (de opdracht) so it should be after 'de opdracht'
7. There is no word like 'vandaag'.

So it should be: Ik kan de opdracht niet op woensdag inleveren.

But this is for neutral sentences. If you like to emphasize a part of it, then you can choose to change the word order.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Oh one last thing: Maybe this 'schedule' looks a lot of work, that's true for the first couple of sentences you use it. But if you use it more often, you'll do it without thinking.

[juan2023]

You said that it is a rule that niet comes before a preposition and gave this example:

"Ik woon niet in Amsterdam."


Doesn't this contradict the rule that "niet" comes after the middle part of the sentence( i.e .the "EHD-time-manner-place" part)?
"in Amsterdam" is a place element. This is according to https://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=WordOrder.46. The only time when niet comes before a place, also according to them, is when the PLACE element refers to a direction. As in

"Zij zijn niet naar de film geweest".

In your example "in" is not refering to a direction, but to an state.

So it looks like the two rules

1. "niet " comes after "EHD-time-manner-place" part ....that you gave
2 niet comes before prepositions ...that is stated in https://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=WordOrder.46

contradict each other in cases like this. One of them should be wrong. How do I make sense of this? I tried to look for answer here https://e-ans.ivdnt.org/, but I couldn't find anything, although it's gotta be there somewhere. Do you have any reference for your rule?

[Bieneke]

The list of rules LeSNT2 gave are useful tips that will get you a long way when deciding where to place 'niet' in a sentence.

The only time when niet comes before a place, also according to them, is when the PLACE element refers to a direction.

That is not exactly what it says on the page you refer to (https://www.dutchgrammar.com/en/?n=WordOrder.46): what it says is that when PLACE involves a direction or movement, 'niet' always precedes it:

As you read at the beginning of this page, you can almost always place niet between the middle and the right part. Almost, because there is one element inside the middle part that always follows after niet: When the PLACE element refers to a direction, niet immediately precedes PLACE.

When PLACE refers to a location, it can also be placed after 'niet', and it often is. Looking at that page, I think it could do with some adjustments. The general idea that in a neutral sentence, 'niet' precedes the element that it negates often holds true, but many times it does not. For practical purposes, a list of rules such as LesNT2 gave, is probably much better.