Is this sentence correct?
The water had overflowed under the bridge.
I think its 'overflowed' shouldn't be in the place, but it seems like my friend sitting beside me is not in sure about this.
Learn English – Is the sentence “The water had overflowed under the bridge” correct
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Best Answer
This sentence is both correct and makes perfect sense.
"The water had overflowed" is, on the face of it, fine. Overflowed means to spill beyond capacity, and that's definitely a thing water sometimes does.
It's often followed by a description of what was overflowed, but there's no rule that says that has to be the case. Instead, here, the prepositional phrase "under the bridge" describes where the overflow happened.
Since it is rather normal for water to be under bridges, that's not at all surprising. More context would make it completely clear, but without that, I assume that a river or stream overflowed its banks below a high bridge.
Like this:
Or, alternately, it could be a bridge over a road, and water may have overflowed onto that road (or, using a slightly alternate meaning of "overflowed", simply overflowed the road). Like this: