Alternative motivation sentences with the conjunction а то and their equivalents in the Bulgarian language

The Russian conjunction a to has an ambiguous syntactic status in complex sentences. Sentences containing the given conjunction are usually described as alternative motivation sentences, which can express additional semantic nuances, such as reason, condition and result, and can be used in various contexts, for instance, for urging someone to do an action, providing logical explanation or pointing out undesirable consequences of an action. That is the reason why they are not easily translated into other languages. There is no agreement of opinion among researchers of the Bulgarian language if the direct equivalent to the Russian conjunction a to exists in the Bulgarian language. Sometimes the Bulgarian conjunction che is pointed out as one, for it can take part in syntactic structures which are similar to the Russian alternative motivation sentences. In the article, we analyze the reasons why, despite the close meanings of che and a to, this pair of equivalents is not always used in translations. The conditions when other conjunctions can play the part of translation equivalents are described.