Verb in ている form ends with しまう


I'm confused by this sentence:

> わたしが答える前に急いで川のふちへ **歩いていってしまった** 。
>
> Before I answered he had hurriedly walked to the river side???.

歩いている means walking i.e. progressive form but しまう denotes completion of a
verb. This seems like a contradiction. How do these two parts fit together and
what nuance is carried by this construct? How would it differ from 歩いてしまった?
Thanks.




There is no contradiction. You are just seeing a phrase that is **_not_**
there.

There is no 「歩{ある}いて **いる** 」 in 「歩いて **いって** しまった」.

There is, however, 「歩いて **いく** 」 in it.

「歩いていく」= "to go on foot", "to walk to", etc. can naturally be combined with
「しまう」. ⇒ "(He) already walked to (the river bank)."

Finally, 「歩いてしまった」 could not be used as it makes no sense here. That means
"(Someone) walked (though he was not supposed to).", "(Someone) walked
(unexpectedly).", etc.




The しまう here means to "completely" do something, or to do it to the end as you
noted. However, the verb used here is 歩いて **いって** しまった, which is 歩いて＋ **いく**
and しまう, not 歩いて＋いる. Also, unless you have more context to provide, I would
not translate this as "he quickly walked", but "I".

>   * わたしが答える前に急いで川のふちへ歩いていってしまった。 → Before I answered, I quickly walked all
> the way to the river side.
>

Also, it seems more natural to use まで than へ in this case, but I'm not sure
where this sentence comes from.

