I’ve been trying to understand this sentence: かもしれないと思って。


I checked the translation of かもしれないと思って。  
It is "I thought it might be".

As far as I know, the 思って is te form of 思う and is used to show a continuation
of action, and the past tense form of 思う is 思った.

Why did the speaker use 思って instead of 思った to show past tense?




Without any further context, ending a sentence like this with the ～て form is
kind of like an ellipsis (`...`); like the speaker had a follow-up thought,
but just trails off.

> [籤]{くじ}に当たるかもしれないと思って。→ I thought I might win the lottery... (Follow-up
> thought could be "So I bought a ticket", "So I already bought a new car",
> "But obviously I didn't", etc.)




Without any further context, ending a sentence like this with the ～て form is
kind of like an ellipsis (`...`); like the speaker had a follow-up thought,
but just trails off.

> [籤]{くじ}に当たるかもしれないと思って。→ I thought I might win the lottery... (Follow-up
> thought could be "So I bought a ticket", "So I already bought a new car",
> "But obviously I didn't", etc.)

