On the differences betweentai andvai (the latter may only be used in interrogative clauses):
tai is aninclusive or, whilevai is anexclusive or. For instance, whileSöitkö sinä leiväntai hedelmät? andSöitkö sinä leivänvai hedelmät? are both correct, the former asks in a yes (bread, fruit, or both) or no (none of them) question, while the latter asks which one you ate, the bread or the fruit.
Outside interrogative clauses, an explicit or may be expressed usingjoko ... tai (technically only for two options, but sometimes used also with more than two), or by usingtai in conjunction withsitten ormuuten.
(tai/taikka/tahi):
In legal language, there exists a difference betweentai andtaikka.taikka is considered "stronger" thantai. For example, an attribute specified before a list will apply to every item withtai, but not withtaikka. Generally speakingtai is seen as binding things closer together thantaikka.
tieteellinentai historiallinen tutkimustaikka tilastointi ―scientificor historical research;or compiling statistics= any of the following: (a) scientific research, (b) historical research, (c) compiling statistics (not necessarily scientific or historical)
Colloquiallytai andtaikka are largely interchangeable and their use depends on the speaker.
Particularly in older legal texts,tahi is sometimes used as well, with the scale beingtai <tahi <taikka (from weakest to strongest).tahi is otherwise now only used dialectally as an alternative form oftai.
“tai”, inKielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish][2] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki:Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland),2004–, retrieved2023-07-03
Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the criticaltonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.
R. de Willett, Elizabeth, et al. (2016)Diccionario tepehuano de Santa María Ocotán, Durango (Serie de vocabularios y diccionarios indígenas “Mariano Silva y Aceves”;48)[3] (in Spanish), electronic edition,Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, A.C., page159
^Batibo, Herman M. (1996) “Loanword clusters nativization rules in Tswana and Swahili: a comparative study”, inSouth African Journal of African Language[1], volume16, number 2,→DOI, page 39 of 33-41
