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Grammatica - loco

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8<br />

Pronouns<br />

92<br />

8.5.8<br />

Independent relatives<br />

These are relatives that begin sentences and thus have no antecedent:<br />

die/wie 17 ‘he who’, wat ‘what, that which’, hetgeen ‘what, that which’.<br />

They could also be regarded as indefinite pronouns:<br />

Wie (die) eens steelt, is altijd een dief.<br />

Once a thief, always a thief.<br />

Wie (die) komen wil, moet nu betalen.<br />

Whoever 18 wants to come must pay now.<br />

Wat je zegt is allemaal onzin.<br />

What (that which) you’re saying is all nonsense.<br />

In the final example the meaning is dat wat. This wat is commonly replaced<br />

in the formal written language by hetgeen (also ’t geen):<br />

Hetgeen je doet is gevaarlijk.<br />

What (that which) you are doing is dangerous.<br />

Hetgeen ik zeggen wil is dit.<br />

What (that which) I want to say is this.<br />

8.5.9<br />

Less common relatives<br />

(a) The relative hetgeen commonly replaces in formal writing the wat<br />

which refers back to a whole clause, but it is an archaic form (see<br />

8.5.4):<br />

Hij heeft zijn auto total loss gereden, hetgeen ik erg jammer<br />

vind.<br />

He has written his car off, which I think is a great shame.<br />

In this sense hetwelk (also written ’t welk) can be used as well; this<br />

use of hetwelk too is archaic:<br />

De eendracht is in het land hersteld, hetwelk (hetgeen) de<br />

gehele bevolking met vreugde vervuld heeft.<br />

Unity was restored in the country, which filled the entire population<br />

with joy.<br />

17 Die is rather literary.<br />

18 Degene(n) die ‘he/those who’ is common in this sense too (see 8.6.6).

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