Correlative Conjunctions (atât...cât, nu numai...ci și)

A correlative conjunction is one that comes in two pieces that work together: an opening marker that sets up a slot, and a closing marker that fills it. English has a small set of these — both… and, not only… but also, neither… nor, either… or — and Romanian matches each of them with a fixed pair. The two key things to get right are which Romanian pair maps onto which English pair (the words are not a literal translation) and the parallel-structure rule: whatever grammatical kind of thing sits after the first half must also sit after the second half. Get the frame right and the sentence locks into balance; break the parallelism and it sounds lopsided to a native ear.

atât… cât și — "both… and"

This is the inclusive pair: it adds two items and insists on both. The first item follows atât, the second follows cât și. It is more emphatic than a plain și ("and") — atât… cât și explicitly says "this one as well as that one."

Note the agreement in the first example: two singular subjects joined by atât… cât și take a plural verb (au venit, not a venit) — exactly as și would. Romanian treats the pair as "X and Y," and "X and Y" is plural. The comma before cât și is standard in careful writing.

nu numai… ci și — "not only… but also"

Here is the pair most worth slowing down for, because it hides a real Romanian distinction. The structure is nu numai X, ci și Y ("not only X, but also Y"). The second half uses ci, not dar. Both ci and dar translate as English "but," but they are not interchangeable: ci is the corrective "but" — it appears only after a negation, to replace the rejected element with the right one. Dar is the adversative "but" — it contrasts two things that are both true. After nu numai, you have a negation, so the corrective ci is the only correct partner.

Notice in the first example the chunk nu numai că… ci a și — when the two halves are full clauses, the first often takes nu numai că and the și migrates next to the verb (a și uitat, "also forgot"). This is idiomatic and worth memorizing as a template. The link to the ci/și system runs deep: the same corrective ci you meet in plain sentences (Nu e roșu, ci verde — "It's not red, but green") is recycled here inside a fixed correlative frame. Correlatives don't invent new connective words; they reuse the ci/și/sau distinctions you already know, locked into paired slots.

nici… nici — "neither… nor"

The negative pair. It coordinates two excluded items. A subtle but important point: when nici… nici stands before the verb, the verb still carries its own negation nu in standard Romanian, because Romanian uses negative concord (multiple negatives reinforce rather than cancel). So "I have neither time nor patience" is literally "I not-have neither time nor patience."

In the second example the subjects come first, so the nu sits on the verb (nu știau). Two singular subjects under nici… nici commonly take a plural verb in modern usage (nu știau), though a singular is also encountered in more conservative prose.

fie… fie — "either… or"

The disjunctive pair, offering a choice between alternatives. It overlaps with sau and ori ("or"), but fie… fie explicitly frames the two as a set of options laid out for selection. Fie is historically the subjunctive of a fi ("to be") — "be it X, be it Y" — which is why it feels slightly more deliberate than a bare sau.

pe de o parte… pe de altă parte — "on the one hand… on the other"

This is the discourse-level correlative, used to set two considerations or viewpoints against each other in an argument or a weighing-up. It belongs to slightly more careful or written register, the kind of thing you reach for when laying out pros and cons. It shades toward the discourse connectors covered on the sentence connectors page.

You can use the second half (pe de altă parte) on its own as a connector meaning "then again / on the other hand," without having explicitly said pe de o parte first — much as in English.

cu cât… cu atât — "the more… the more"

The proportional correlative deserves a flag because it is the one pair with no word-for-word English mapping. English uses the more… the more; Romanian uses cu cât… cu atât (literally "by how much… by that much"), and each half marks the scaled dimension with mai. There is no article corresponding to English the. This frame is treated in full on the proportional comparison page; here it is enough to recognize it as a member of the correlative family.

The parallel-structure rule

The rule that governs all of these: whatever grammatical category follows the first marker must follow the second. If atât is followed by a prepositional phrase, cât și must also be followed by a prepositional phrase; if nu numai introduces a noun, ci și must introduce a noun. Broken parallelism is the single most common stylistic error with correlatives, and it sounds as off in Romanian as "She is both intelligent and a hard worker" sounds in careful English.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Correlatives come in two halves; commit to the pair the moment you say the first marker, and always supply the matching second.
• atât… cât și = both… and (plural verb); nici… nici = neither… nor (verb keeps nu); fie… fie = either… or.
• nu numai… ci și uses the corrective ci, never dar — because nu numai is a negation, and Romanian replaces a rejected element with ci.
• cu cât… cu atât = the more… the more, with no English-style "the" and an obligatory mai in each half.
• The parallel-structure rule binds all of them: the same grammatical category must follow both halves.