Breakdown of Моя сестра, окончив университет, получила диплом.
сестра
sister
мой
my / mine
университет
university
окончить
to finish, graduate from
Questions & Answers about Моя сестра, окончив университет, получила диплом.
How is окончив formed, and what exactly does it tell us about the timeline of the sentence?
Окончив is a perfective verbal adverb. You form it by taking the past tense of the perfective verb окончить (to finish/graduate), dropping the -л, and adding the suffix -в. Because it is perfective, it indicates that the action of graduating was fully completed before the main action (получила) took place. It translates nicely to "having graduated."
Why is университет used without a preposition like "from"?
In English we say "graduated from university," but the Russian verb окончить literally means "to finish." It is a transitive verb, meaning it acts directly on an object. Therefore, it takes a direct object in the accusative case. She "finished university" (окончив университет).
Why are there commas around окончив университет?
In Russian, a verbal adverb that has dependent words attached to it (in this case, its direct object университет) forms a phrase. A strict punctuation rule requires these phrases to always be set off by commas, no matter where they appear in the sentence.
Could the second half of the sentence be "the university gave her a diploma" instead of "she received a diploma"?