---
title: The flakes ran along the ground, and the nearer they came the larger… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The flakes ran along the ground, and the nearer they came the larger they grew. Who acts: flakes. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Snow Queen, part 4, sentence 137

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The flakes ran along the ground, and the nearer they came the larger they grew.

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**Who acts:** flakes · **What happens:** run, come, grow · **To what, where:** ground

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (flakes), 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:pg1597:14:137
# text = The flakes ran along the ground, and the nearer they came the larger they grew.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	flakes	flake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	along	along	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	nearer	near	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	12	advmod	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	larger	large	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	12	nsubj	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **run** | past | the flakes |  |  | the ground |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme along ground=Trajectory |
| 2 | **come** | past | flakes *= flake* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **grow** | past | flakes *= flake* |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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