# Participles (-nut / -va) in past-tense sentences



## Gavril

Hienoa torstaita,

I just came across this sentence here (I’ve shortened it slightly):

_Hankalin tilanne oli [...], kun haastattelin muuan Skånen ruotsia puhunutta maanviljelijää Ruotsin maatalouspolitiikasta.
_ 
”The worst situation was when I interviewed a Swedish-speaking farmer from Skåne about Sweden’s agricultural policies.”

In a sentence like this one, where the main verb is in the past tense, I would expect _ruotsia puhunut_ to mean “… who had spoken Swedish (at some earlier time)”. But in this context, _ruotsia puhunut _seem to mean “… who spoke/was speaking Swedish”.

Does a participle normally change in this way, to reflect the tense of the main verb? E.g., would you normally say

_Kierrellessäni Hakaniemellä tapasin silakkaa myyneen kemiläisen._

"While walking around Hakaniemi, I met a person from Kemi selling herring."

or would you say, … _tapasin silakkaa myyvän kemiläisen_ to express this meaning?

Maybe the first sentence would mean that the person was selling herring at that time, whereas the second sentence means that the person is still selling it now?

Kiitos!


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## kirahvi

I think your interpretation is correct.

Truth to be told, I don't make the distiction very often and use the words quite interchangably, no matter how wrong it might be from the grammatical point of view. I'm not an expert, so I don't know.


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## Hakro

Gavril said:


> _Hankalin tilanne oli [...], kun haastattelin muuatta Skånen ruotsia puhunutta maanviljelijää Ruotsin maatalouspolitiikasta._


(A small mistake in the original text.)

I agree with Kirahvi that Gavril's interpretation is correct, but I disagree about the interchangeability, at least in written language.


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## kirahvi

Hakro said:


> I agree with Kirahvi that Gavril's interpretation is correct, but I disagree about the interchangeability, at least in written language.



Yes, you're correct. I was thinking about the way I speak, but forgot to make it clear in my post.

Another small correction to Gavril's post: _Hakaniemessä_ rather than _Hakaniemellä, _at least if you're talking about the one in Helsinki. You could also say _Hakaniemen torilla_.


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