muuttaen

Muuttaen is the present active adverbial participle of the Finnish verb muuttaa, meaning “to change” or “to move.” It is used to form participial clauses that express the manner, cause, or simultaneity of the action in the main clause. In English, muuttaen is often rendered as “by changing” or “changing.”

Formation and use: muuttaen is created from the verb stem muutt- with the suffix -en, producing a non-finite form that describes how an action is carried out. In a sentence, a participial clause introduced by muuttaen generally shares the subject with the main clause, and is separated by a comma. This construction is common in written Finnish and can lend a concise, formal tone. In everyday spoken Finnish, speakers more often use a separate finite clause to convey similar meaning.

Examples:

- Hän lisäsi vettä, muuttaen seoksen koostumusta. (He added water, thereby changing the composition of the mixture.)

- Hän katsoi karttaa, muuttaen suunnakseen pohjoiseen. (He looked at the map, changing his course to the north.)

Relation to other forms: muuttaen contrasts with the present active participle muodossa muuttava (or muuttava, “changing”) which can describe a person or thing that is in the process of changing, and with past participles like muuttanut, which indicate a completed change. Muuttaen specifically functions as an adverbial, non-finite form used to affect the manner or context of the primary verb.

See also: Finnish grammar, participles, non-finite clauses, adverbial participles.