selvittyään

Selvittyään is a Finnish non-finite verb form used to connect clauses by indicating that an action has been completed before the action in the main clause. It is typically translated into English as "after having ..." and is commonly described as a perfective converb or participial clause in Finnish grammar.

The form derives from the verb selvitä, which encompasses senses such as to become clear, to get through, or to cope. The exact morpho-syntactic details involve the perfective participial construction that yields a subordinate clause pointing to a prior event. In use, selvittyään attaches to the subject of the main clause, allowing the writer or speaker to avoid repeating the subject in two separate clauses.

In practice, selvittyään is most at home in written Finnish, including formal prose, news reports, and narrative passages. It conveys that the preceding action has already concluded before the main event described in the sentence. It can express sequence, cause, or justification, depending on context, and it often replaces a subordinate clause introduced by kuten or sen jälkeen kun in more formal or literary styles.

Examples:

- Selvittyään tutkimuksesta, viranomaiset antoivat lausuntonsa. (After having completed the investigation, the authorities released their statement.)

- Selvittyään viimeisistä epäilyistä, hän teki päätöksen. (Having cleared up the final doubts, he made the decision.)

Compared with alternative constructions, selvittyään highlights completed prior action and reduces the need to repeat the subject. It is one of several Finnish verb-formulations used to create concise, temporally precise sentences without additional conjunctions.