Breakdown of Ehdokas voi joko voittaa tai hävitä kuntavaalit.
tai
or
voida
can, to be able to
hävitä
to lose
voittaa
to win
ehdokas
candidate
kuntavaalit
municipal elections
joko
either
Questions & Answers about Ehdokas voi joko voittaa tai hävitä kuntavaalit.
How exactly do joko and tai work together in this sentence?
They form the correlative conjunction pair joko ... tai, which means either ... or. Notice how they are placed immediately before the two alternatives they connect: the verbs voittaa (win) and hävitä (lose).
Why is the object kuntavaalit in the nominative plural form?
The verbs voittaa and hävitä take a total object here because winning or losing the election is seen as a complete action. While singular total objects usually take the genitive form, plural total objects always take the nominative plural. Since vaalit (elections) is a plural word, it remains kuntavaalit.
Why are the verbs voittaa and hävitä in their basic dictionary forms?
Both verbs are governed by the auxiliary verb voi (can). The verb voida requires the main verb to be in the first infinitive (the dictionary form). The conjunction tai simply links the two infinitive verbs together so they both connect to voi.
Does the verb hävitä always mean to lose?
It means to lose in the context of games, matches, or elections, especially when contrasted with voittaa (to win) as it is here. However, in other contexts, hävitä can also mean to disappear or to vanish.
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