---
title: The robbers sat round the fire, sang and drank; and the old female r… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The robbers sat round the fire, sang and drank; and the old female robber jumped about so, that it was quite dreadful for Gerda to see her. Who acts: robbers, old female robber, fire. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, part 4, with its dependency tree and the p
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/14/41/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Snow Queen, part 4, sentence 41

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The robbers sat round the fire, sang and drank; and the old female robber jumped about so, that it was quite dreadful for Gerda to see her.

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**Who acts:** robbers, old female robber, fire · **What happens:** sit, sing, drink, jump about, be, see · **To what, where:** robber

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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 (robbers, old female robber, fire), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg1597:14:41
# text = The robbers sat round the fire, sang and drank; and the old female robber jumped about so, that it was quite dreadful for Gerda to see her.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	robbers	robber	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	round	round	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	drank	drink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
14	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
15	female	female	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	robber	robber	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	jumped	jump	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
18	about	about	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	so	so	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
23	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
24	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	dreadful	dreadful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	parataxis	_	_
26	for	for	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	Gerda	Gerda	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	_
28	to	to	PART	TO	_	29	mark	_	_
29	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	advcl	_	_
30	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | the robbers |  |  |  |  | round the fire | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | the robbers *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **drink** | past | the robbers *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **jump about** | past | the old female robber |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **is** | past | fire |  |  |  |  | for Gerda; dreadful *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **see** | to-infinitive | fire *not said here* | robber |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer she=Stimulus |

<!-- .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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