Breakdown of Plötzlich kamen viele Pfeile über die Mauer geflogen.
kommen
to come
viel
much / a lot
fliegen
to fly
über
over, above
plötzlich
suddenly
die Mauer
the wall (exterior, brick or stone)
der Pfeil
the arrow
Questions & Answers about Plötzlich kamen viele Pfeile über die Mauer geflogen.
Why is geflogen used here instead of a present participle like in the English translation 'flying'?
When using the verb kommen to express how something arrives, German uses the past participle (Partizip II) of the second verb. While English says 'came flying' using an -ing word, German strictly pairs kommen with the past participle, resulting in kamen geflogen.
Why is the accusative case used in über die Mauer rather than the dative?
über is a two-way preposition. Because the arrows are actively moving across the wall to a new destination, it indicates a change of location and requires the accusative case. If the arrows were simply hovering in place above the wall, you would use the dative case (über der Mauer).
Why is geflogen pushed to the very end of the sentence?
In the kommen + past participle structure, kommen behaves similarly to a helping verb when it comes to word order. The conjugated verb (kamen) takes the second position, and the past participle (geflogen) goes to the very end of the clause, creating a bracket around the subject and the prepositional phrase.
Does geflogen change if I want to say this sentence in the present tense?
No, geflogen stays exactly the same. The past participle here describes the manner of motion, not the time it happened. To make the sentence present tense, you only change the main verb: Plötzlich kommen viele Pfeile über die Mauer geflogen.
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