Breakdown of Zależało nam na obu pracownikach, bo bez ich wkładu firma zbankrutowałaby.
oni
they (masculine personal)
my
we
na
on, at / to (motion toward) / for (a meal) / for (waiting for)
pracownik
employee
firma
company
bo
because
bez
without
oba
both (m/n)
zbankrutować
to go bankrupt
wkład
contribution
zależeć
to matter (to someone), to depend
Questions & Answers about Zależało nam na obu pracownikach, bo bez ich wkładu firma zbankrutowałaby.
How does bez ich wkładu act as a conditional clause here?
The phrase bez ich wkładu (without their contribution) replaces a full hypothetical clause, such as gdyby nie ich wkład (if it were not for their contribution). Because it implies this unfulfilled condition, the verb in the main clause, zbankrutowałaby, must take the conditional mood.
Why is the sentence structured as Zależało nam na... instead of using a normal subject?
To express caring about something, Polish uses the verb zależeć in an impersonal way. The person who cares is in the Dative case (nam means 'to us'), and the thing being cared about takes na plus the Locative case (na obu pracownikach). Literally, it reads as 'It mattered to us on both employees.'
Why is the word for 'both' written as obu here?
Obu is the Locative plural form of the numeral oba (both), which is required by the preposition na. It modifies the Locative plural noun pracownikach. You might also encounter obydwu, which means the exact same thing, but obu is shorter and very common.
Does zbankrutowałaby mean 'would go bankrupt' or 'would have gone bankrupt'?
It means 'would have gone bankrupt' in this sentence. Polish does not have a distinct past conditional form. You must rely on the context to know if it refers to the present/future or the past. Since the first clause is in the past tense (zależało), we know the bankruptcy was a hypothetical past event.
How is the word zbankrutowałaby constructed?
It is built by taking the third-person feminine past tense of the perfective verb zbankrutować, which is zbankrutowała (because firma is feminine), and adding the conditional particle -by.
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