# Ik denk van wel.



## cheshire

Ik denk *van *wel. (I'd think so.)

I read that "van" is a preposition. Why isn't there any noun in the sentence?


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## Suehil

'Ik denk van wel' is 'I think so'.  There is no noun in the English sentence, either.
'I'd think so' would be 'ik zou denken'.


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## elroy

Suehil said:


> 'Ik denk van wel' is 'I think so'. There is no noun in the English sentence, either.


 Sure, but the English version doesn't have a preposition.  I think that's what Cheshire is asking about.  Why is there a "van" without an object?

I'd be interested in the answer too.


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## Suehil

'Denken van' means to think in the sense of 'be of the opinion that', 'to consider'.  'Wel' is often used in the sense of 'it is' (often) when contradicting a negative statement.  So the construction of 'ik denk van wel' is 'I am of the opinion that it is'  - in short 'I think so'


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## Joannes

(Cheshire, I know you're not afraid of grammatical terminology so I'm not going to hold back. )

*Van* is used here to indicate the introduction of a proposition in its own right. In sentence (1) below, *wel* stresses the (contrastive) positive polarity of the given proposition. In (2), *niet* turns the proposition negative.

(1) *Ik denk wel.* 'I do think!'
(2) *Ik denk niet.* 'I don't think.'

To indicate that we are dealing with more than one proposition, *van* is used. Compare to Italian *credere di sì/no*. In French and Spanish *que* is used to indicate this: *je crois que oui/si/non* / *creo que sí /no*. The Italian version needs *di* less than we do *van*, because there arises no ambiguity since the language uses its _answering particles_ to carry the proposition and its polarity. In Dutch the particles *wel* and *niet* are also used to indicate polarity within sentences (see above).

Why do Dutch and Italian use a preposition to indicate this and not - more logically - a conjunction like French and Spanish? I don't know. 

Note that you could also say *ik denk het wel* 'I think so' or *ik denk het niet* 'I think not' in which *wel* en *niet* modify the proposition carried by *het*.


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## cheshire

Excellent answer! It greatly helps giving contrasting examples from other languages!
Thanks everyone!


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## HKK

Joannes said:


> Why do Dutch and Italian use a preposition to indicate this and not - more logically - a conjunction like French and Spanish? I don't know.



My guess on this is: the logical way to go would be like Spanish and French - 
*"Ik denk dat wel." (~Je crois que oui). But since dat is used both as a demonstrative pronoun and a conjunction, this would be ambiguous in Dutch. For example "Ik denk dat wel" is different in meaning from "Ik denk van wel", because "dat" is always interpreted as a pronoun when it isn't followed by a verb. Because of that, we can't use "dat".

I hope this isn't too confusing


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## elroy

HKK said:


> I hope this isn't too confusing


 Not at all.   It sounds like a very plausible possibility, although it doesn't help explain why Italian uses "di."


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## HKK

I don't know any Italian. Doesn't _di _correspond to _van_?


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## elroy

Yes, but Italian does not have just one word for "dat" as a conjunction and "dat" as a pronoun, so there would be no ambiguity if "che" ("dat" as a conjunction) were used.


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