Word
Vieraslistalla on joko kaksi tai kolme vegaania.
Meaning
There are either two or three vegans on the guest list.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Vieraslistalla on joko kaksi tai kolme vegaania.
Why is the verb on in the singular when the subject is "two or three vegans"?
This is an existential sentence, which states that something exists in a certain place. Existential sentences typically start with the location (Vieraslistalla) and use the third-person singular verb on, even if the subject that follows is plural.
Why do we use tai here instead of vai, since both translate to "or"?
The word vai is strictly used in questions to present mutually exclusive options. Because this sentence is a declarative statement, you must use tai. Furthermore, the correlative conjunction for "either... or" is a fixed pair in Finnish: it is always joko... tai.
Why is vegaania in the partitive singular instead of the partitive plural?
In Finnish, any base number greater than one requires the noun following it to be in the partitive singular when the phrase acts as a basic subject or object. Because the numbers kaksi and kolme dictate this rule, the noun vegaani takes the partitive singular form vegaania regardless of how many people there actually are.