Edistäessä

Edistäessä is the present active participle form of the Finnish verb edistää, meaning to promote or advance. It is used to express a simultaneous action in a subordinate clause, roughly equivalent to “while promoting” or “as promotion/advancement takes place” in English. The form is non-finite and does not carry its own subject or tense; instead, it references the action of the main clause in which it appears.

Formation and usage: Edistäessä is formed from the verb stem edist- with the participial suffix -essä. It functions like a present participle in Finnish and is commonly found in written or formal contexts. It helps to link actions in a single sentence, signaling that the promoting activity occurs concurrently with another action described in the main clause.

Nuanced usage: Edistäessä is distinct from edistäen (an adverbial participle indicating manner, often translated as “by promoting” or “through promoting”) and from edistämällä (the gerund, used to express means or method, also “by promoting”). The choice among these forms affects emphasis and syntactic function: edistäessä marks time and simultaneity, while the other forms indicate means or instrumentality.

Examples:

- Hanke eteni sujuvasti edistäessä yhteistyötä muiden toimijoiden kanssa. (The project progressed smoothly while promoting collaboration with other actors.)

- Koulutusohjelma kehittyi edistäessä digitaalisuutta ja oppimisen laatua. (The training program developed as it promoted digitalization and learning quality.)

In contemporary Finnish, edistäessä appears mainly in written and formal discourse, such as reports, academic texts, and policy documents, whereas in casual speech speakers may rephrase using conjunctions or other constructions.