---
title: One winter's day, when the flakes of snow were flying about, he spre… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: One winter's day, when the flakes of snow were flying about, he spread the skirts of his blue coat, and caught the snow as it fell. Who acts: flakes, sun, snow. 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 clau
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Snow Queen, part 1, sentence 82

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One winter's day, when the flakes of snow were flying about, he spread the skirts of his blue coat, and caught the snow as it fell.

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**Who acts:** flakes, sun, snow · **What happens:** fly, spread, catch, fall · **To what, where:** skirts, snow

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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 (flakes, sun, 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:pg1597:11:82
# text = One winter's day, when the flakes of snow were flying about, he spread the skirts of his blue coat, and caught the snow as it fell.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	winter	winter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	's	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	flakes	flake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
13	about	about	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	spread	spread	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	skirts	skirt	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
21	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	coat	coat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	_
28	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	30	mark	_	_
29	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
30	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | past · progressive | the flakes of snow |  |  |  | day | about *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **spread** | past | sun | the skirts of sun's blue coat |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location skirt=Theme |
| 3 | **catch** | past | sun *not said here* | the snow |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent snow=Theme |
| 4 | **fall** | past | snow |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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