When to use ます-stem + かかる Watching a drama I came across the sentence > **** I would have translated it like: > The perpetrator came up from behind and hit the woman. Unfortunately I am not to confident in my interpretation since I don't really understand the usage of and what kind of nuance it adds to the sentence... Thanks for your help in advance :)

> Verb in []{} (continuative form) +
>
> = "to be about to (verb)", "to almost (verb)", "to initiate the action of (verb)ing", etc.

In other words, if one only has the sentence:

> []{}[]{}[]{}[]{}[]{}

without any context, _**one does not know if the striking actually took place**_. Maybe it happened. Maybe someone/something stopped the perpetrator from hitting her. All one knows for sure is that:

> "He raised his hand against her."

Chances are that he probably did strike her because it only takes a second to do so, but that assumption does not come automatically with **** , which is **not** the same thing as .