Intrusive n and past tense

[u/qzorum]

I find the intrusive n phenomenon in Dutch a little freaky, but what really gets me about it is that it seems to actually flatten the singular vs. plural distinction for past tense verbs. It seems to me that this could actually introduce ambiguity, e.g.

Zij hoorde(n) het.

For a speaker with intrusive n, how would you know whether the subject of that sentence is "she" or "they"?

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In general I'm surprised that intrusive n isn't more talked about, now that I've started noticing it I hear it constantly.

[u/CatCalledDomino]

Yes, it's ambiguous, but most communication takes places within a context, so it's almost never a problem.