---
title: The flake of snow grew larger and larger; and at last it was like a… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The flake of snow grew larger and larger; and at last it was like a young lady, dressed in the finest white gauze, made of a million little flakes like stars. Who acts: flake, snow. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pra
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/11/48/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Snow Queen, part 1, sentence 48

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The flake of snow grew larger and larger; and at last it was like a young lady, dressed in the finest white gauze, made of a million little flakes like stars.

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**Who acts:** flake, snow · **What happens:** grow, be, dress, make · **To what, where:** last young lady, finest white gauze

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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 (flake, snow), 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:pg1597:11:48
# text = The flake of snow grew larger and larger; and at last it was like a young lady, dressed in the finest white gauze, made of a million little flakes like stars.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	flake	flake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
5	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	larger	large	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	5	xcomp	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	larger	large	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
15	like	like	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
20	dressed	dress	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	acl	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
23	finest	fine	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	25	amod	_	_
24	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	gauze	gauze	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
27	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	25	acl	_	_
28	of	of	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	million	million	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	32	nummod	_	_
31	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	flakes	flake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	obl	_	_
33	like	like	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
34	stars	star	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grow** | past | the flake of snow |  |  |  |  | large *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past | snow |  |  |  |  | like a last young lady | tree rules |
| 3 | **dress** | participle |  | a last young lady *not said here* |  | the finest white gauze |  |  | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **make** | participle |  | the finest white gauze *not said here* |  |  |  | of million little flakes like stars | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |

<!-- .note -->
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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