Puolustellen

Puolustellen is the present-time adverbial participle (converb) of the Finnish verb puolustella, meaning defending or by defending. It expresses a concurrent action or manner in which the main verb is performed and is typically used in written Finnish to add descriptive detail without creating a new finite clause.

The form is created from the verb stem and the suffix -en, yielding puolustellen. It is different from the finite forms of the verb and does not carry person or number on its own. Instead, it modifies the main verb of the sentence, indicating how the action is carried out or the justification for it.

In practice, puolustellen is used to describe someone defending someone or something, often in a way that accompanies the main action. For example: Hän vastasi väitteisiin puolustellen itseään. (He answered the accusations, defending himself.) Another example: Puolustellen kantansa, hän esitti lisäperusteluita. (Defending his stance, he presented additional reasons.) The construction is common in formal or written Finnish and can add nuance to the speaker’s or writer’s stance without turning the sentence into a compound clause.

Related forms include puolustaminen (defense or defending as a concept) and the present active participle muodossa puolustava (defending). Puolustellen functions primarily as an adverbial modifier and is not used as a standalone predicate. It should be distinguished from adjectives like puolustava, which describe the subject directly as “defending.”