Breakdown of La tendencia cambia, ya por el consumidor, ya por la inflación.
cambiar
to change / to exchange, to swap (one thing for another)
por
because of (cause)
el consumidor
the consumer
la tendencia
the trend; the tendency (to tend to)
ya
either … or, now … now (repeated, distributive)
la inflación
the inflation
Questions & Answers about La tendencia cambia, ya por el consumidor, ya por la inflación.
Why does this sentence use ya... ya... instead of just o... o...?
The pair ya... ya... is a distributive conjunction used to present alternatives that aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, often translating to 'whether... or...'. It implies the trend changes sometimes for one reason, sometimes for the other. Using o... o... would sound more like a strict, exclusive choice where only one can be the true cause.
Could I use the other distributive conjunction, bien... bien..., in this sentence?
Why do we need the word por here instead of para?
In this context, por expresses 'due to' or 'because of'. It introduces the cause of the change. This is a good reminder of the difference between the two prepositions: por is for cause, while para is for purpose. If you used para, it would mean the trend changes in order to benefit the consumer.
Is it strictly necessary to repeat por after the second ya?
Yes. When you use correlative conjunctions like ya... ya..., you should maintain a parallel structure. Repeating the preposition por before each noun makes the sentence grammatically balanced and natural to a native speaker.
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