Breakdown of Они используют сосну, чтобы делать дешёвые пиломатериалы.
они
they
делать
to do
дешёвый
cheap
чтобы
in order to
использовать
to use (+ accusative)
сосна
pine
пиломатериал
lumber, sawn timber
Questions & Answers about Они используют сосну, чтобы делать дешёвые пиломатериалы.
Why does the stress change to the first syllable in сосну?
The nominative form is сосна (with stress on the final syllable). When it changes to the accusative singular, the stress shifts to the first syllable: сосну. You will see this stress shift in several other common feminine nouns, such as вода becoming воду and гора becoming гору.
Why is делать in the infinitive here?
We use the infinitive after чтобы when the subject of both halves of the sentence is the same (here, они are doing both the using and the making). If the subjects were different, чтобы would be followed by a past tense verb, for example: чтобы мы делали (so that we make).
What are the roots of the compound word пиломатериалы?
It combines пила (a saw) and материалы (materials), linked by the connecting vowel -о-. Translating literally to 'sawn materials', this is the standard Russian term for lumber or timber.
Использовать is a bi-aspectual verb. Which aspect is it here?
It is functioning as an imperfective verb because it describes a general, habitual fact. Since использовать shares the same forms for both aspects, if the context were perfective, the present-tense form используют would actually be understood as the future tense ('they will use').
How could we express a similar idea using the formal preposition ввиду (due to) from this lesson?
Ввиду indicates a cause and requires a noun in the Genitive case, so it cannot be followed by an infinitive like чтобы can. We would need to change the purpose clause into a noun phrase. For example: Они используют сосну ввиду её дешевизны (They use pine due to its cheapness).
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