ryhtyvän

Ryhtyvän is the present active participle form derived from the Finnish verb ryhtyä, which means “to begin” or “to undertake.” The participle describes someone who is about to take on an action or who is in the act of preparing to begin something. In Finnish, participles function similarly to adjectives and can modify a noun in various cases.

Morphology and usage: The present active participle is formed with the suffix -vä/-vä added to the verb stem ryhty-. The nominative singular form is ryhtyvä, while the genitive singular is ryhtyvän and the partitive singular is ryhtyvää. As a modifier, ryhtyvän behaves like an adjective and agrees with the noun it modifies in case and number. The form ryhtyvän is most commonly encountered in genitive constructions, for example in phrases such as ryhtyvän miehen suunnitelmat (the plans of the man who is about to begin).

Context and register: The use of ryhtyvän tends to appear in formal, literary, or historical styles rather than everyday speech. It conveys a sense of imminence or intentionality—someone who is ready to begin or who has taken the first steps toward an undertaking.

Notes: Ryhtyä denotes the action of starting, and the present active participle ryhtyvä, with its inflected forms including ryhtyvän, provides a way to describe such upcoming or ongoing beginnings within noun phrases. The form ryhtyvän is thus a grammatical tool for expressing “the person who is about to begin” in a compact, adjectival way.