pysähtyessä

Pysähtyessä is a Finnish adverbial participle form derived from the verb pysähtyä, meaning “to stop.” It is used to introduce a subordinate clause that describes a time-related or background circumstance for the action in the main clause. In practice, pysähtyessä translates roughly to “while stopping” or “upon stopping” in English, signaling that the two actions occur simultaneously or that one action occurs when the other happens.

Grammatical behavior and variants: pysähtyessä is part of the category of liitetyn lauseen konjunktiiviset partisiipit (conjunction participles). The form agrees with the subject of the clause, and there are several person- and number-specific variants depending on who is performing the action. Common forms around the same verb include pysähtyessään (third-person singular, “while he/she/it stops” or “while stopping”), as well as other person forms such as pysähtyessäni, pysähtyessäsi, pysähtyessämme, and so on. The exact suffix changes reflect the subject of the subordinate clause.

Usage notes: The construction is more typical of written Finnish and literary styles than casual speech. It provides a compact way to link actions and to set the temporal frame without repeating the subject. When the subject is explicit and the sentence would become ambiguous, writers may replace the participle with a finite verb form or a conjunction, for example using “kun pysähtyi” or “pysähtyessään hän.”

Examples:

- Hän pysähtyessään kuunteli radiota. (While stopping, he listened to the radio.)

- Auto pysähtyessään vilkutti valoja. (As the car stopped, it flashed its lights.)

Pysähtyessä thus serves as a concise, stylistically elevated means of expressing a concurrent or contextual moment in Finnish.