Changes from single to double letters are common when discussing Dutch grammar, but they are entirely predictable once one knows how the spelling rules work.
There is an additional rule called V2 in main clauses, which moves the finite (inflected for subject) verb into the second position in the sentence.
[citation needed] Unlike in English, however, adjectives and adverbs must precede the verb: dat het boek groen is, "that the book is green".
In imperative sentences, the verb of the main clause is always placed first, although it may be preceded by a noun phrase indicating who is being addressed.
When short i is lengthened in this way, it becomes long e. Other nouns with this change include: bad "bath", bedrag "(money) contribution", bevel "command", blad "sheet of paper; magazine" (not "leaf"), (aan)bod "offer", dak "roof", dal "valley", gat "hole", gebed "prayer", gebod "commandment", gen "gene", glas "glass", god "god", hertog "duke", hof "court", hol "cave; burrow", lid "member", lot "lottery ticket", oorlog "war", pad "path", schot "shot", slag "strike, battle", smid "smith", spel "large game; spectacle" (not in the sense of a smaller everyday game), staf "staff", vat "vat, barrel", verbod "ban, prohibition", verdrag "treaty", verlof "permission", weg "road, way".
For example: eierschaal "eggshell", kinderarbeid "child labour", klederdracht "traditional costume", rundertartaar "beef tartare".
Alongside the change in vowel length, there is also a stress shift in the plural, patterned on the Latin third declension where this also occurs.
The plural is always formed with -s. The basic suffix -tje is modified in different ways depending on the final sounds of the noun it is attached to.
When the vowel of the last syllable is both short and stressed, and it is followed by a sonorant, an extra schwa -e- is inserted, giving -etje.
This form is not used much today, due to final n-deletion which is common in Dutch, but it is still found in older texts and names.
However, some eastern dialects (East Brabantian, Limburgish and many Low Saxon areas) have regular umlaut of the preceding vowel in diminutives.
Some examples: Noun cases were still prescribed in the formal written standard up until the 1940s, but were abolished then because they had long disappeared from the spoken language.
This is not stylistically neutral, but has a formal, rhetorical or poetic ring to it, and can occasionally distinguish literal meanings of an adjective from a more figurative one.
Adjectives have a special form called the partitive that is used after an indefinite pronoun such as iets 'something', niets 'nothing', veel 'much, a lot', weinig 'little, a few'.
As in English, Dutch personal pronouns still retain a distinction in case: the nominative (subjective), genitive (≈ possessive) and accusative/dative (objective).
A distinction was once prescribed between the accusative 3rd person plural pronoun hen and the dative hun, but it was artificial and both forms are in practice variants of the same word.
These two cases are still sometimes taught to students, and may be used in formal Dutch, but no distinction is made in the everyday spoken language.
However, because of the relatively complex and dialect-specific way in which the pronouns developed, this is less straightforward than it is in for example French or German.
The role of the old singular pronoun was taken over by the old plural form, which differed slightly depending on dialect: gij in the South, jij in the North.
The unstressed forms are shown in brackets; those spelled with an apostrophe or hyphen are not used often in formal written text, and are used mainly in informal speech.
This distinction was artificially introduced in the 17th century, and is largely ignored in spoken language and not well understood by Dutch speakers.
Thus: An exception is ons, which inflects like an indefinite adjective, receiving -e when used with a masculine, feminine or plural noun.
Before the case system was abolished from written Dutch, and in southern spoken language, all possessive determiners inflect(ed) as indefinite adjectives, not only ons.
The additional -t of the second-person gij-form is optional in the past tense for weak verbs and is usually considered archaic.
Rarely, the present participle is used as a predicate, to indicate progressive actions as in English, such as De bal was rollende.
There are a few remnants of the latter, e.g. in: It also occurs in expressions involving tot ... toe (until ... resulted): The infinitive is also commonly used as a kind of impersonal or polite imperative (infinitivus pro imperativo).
Verbs of motion like lopen 'to walk', zwemmen 'to swim', rijden 'to ride, drive' typically occur as unaccusative / unergative pairs.
Furthermore, for ergative verbs, the passive does not differ significantly in meaning from the regular intransitive present tense.
A different way to render progressive aspect is to use the (static) verbs zitten 'to sit', lopen 'to walk', staan 'to stand' and liggen 'to lie' with te + infinitive.
Unlike normal adjectives, they always appear in the inflected form; always ending in -e ignoring whether the following noun is neuter or not, and are usually preceded by a definite article of some kind.