---
title: Mirth never reigned there; there was never even a little bear-ball,… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Mirth never reigned there; there was never even a little bear-ball, with the storm for music, while the polar bears went on their hind legs and showed off their steps. Who acts: Mirth, polar bears, bears. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, part 5, with its depe
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/15/14/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Snow Queen, part 5, sentence 14

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Mirth never reigned there; there was never even a little bear-ball, with the storm for music, while the polar bears went on their hind legs and showed off their steps.

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**Who acts:** Mirth, polar bears, bears · **What happens:** not reign, not be, go, show off, step · **To what, where:** little bear ball, hind legs, steps

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Mirth, polar bears, bears), 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:pg1597:15:14
# text = Mirth never reigned there; there was never even a little bear-ball, with the storm for music, while the polar bears went on their hind legs and showed off their steps.
1	Mirth	mirth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	reigned	reign	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
6	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	7	expl	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
8	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
9	even	even	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
11	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
12	bear	bear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	storm	storm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	music	music	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
22	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	polar	polar	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	bears	bear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	nsubj	_	_
26	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
27	on	on	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
28	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	30	nmod:poss	_	_
29	hind	hind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obl	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
32	showed	show	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	conj	_	_
33	off	off	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
34	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	35	nmod:poss	_	_
35	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **reign** | past | Mirth |  |  | there |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **is a** | past |  | a little bear ball and the storm for music |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **go** | past | the polar bears |  |  | bears's hind legs |  |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on leg=Location |
| 4 | **show off** | past | the polar bears *not said here* | bears's steps |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent step=Recipient |
| 5 | **step** |  | bears *= bear* |  |  |  |  |  | nom step «act transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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