Watching a drama I came across the sentence
犯人は背後から女性に近づき、殴りかかった。
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 かかる and what kind of nuance it adds to the sentence...
Thanks for your help in advance :)
「Verb in [連用形]{れんようけい} (continuative form) + かかる」
= "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:
「[犯人]{はんにん}は[背後]{はいご}から[女性]{じょせい}に[近]{ちか}づき、[殴]{なぐ}りかかった。」
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 「殴りかかった」, which is not the same thing as 「殴った」.
