---
title: “It is the white bees that are swarming,” said Kay's old grandmother. — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “It is the white bees that are swarming,” said Kay's old grandmother. Who acts: storm, white bees, old grandmother. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Snow Queen, part 1, sentence 36

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“It is the white bees that are swarming,” said Kay's old grandmother.

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**Who acts:** storm, white bees, old grandmother · **What happens:** be, swarm, say · **To what, where:** white bees · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (storm, white bees, old grandmother), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg1597:11:36
# text = “It is the white bees that are swarming,” said Kay's old grandmother.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	bees	bee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
8	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	swarming	swarm	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	Kay	Kay	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	's	's	PART	POS	_	13	case	_	_
15	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	grandmother	grandmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | storm | the white bees |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **swarm** *in a quote* | present · progressive | the white bees |  |  |  |  |  | vn swarm-47.5.1-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Kay's old grandmother |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 1597 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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