---
title: The northern-lights shone with such precision that one could tell ex… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The northern-lights shone with such precision that one could tell exactly when they were at their highest or lowest degree of brightness. Who acts: one, lights. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Queen, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/15/16/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Snow Queen, part 5, sentence 16

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The northern-lights shone with such precision that one could tell exactly when they were at their highest or lowest degree of brightness.

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**Who acts:** one, lights · **What happens:** shine, tell, be · **To what, where:** northern lights, such precision, highest degree · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (one, lights), 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:pg1597:15:16
# text = The northern-lights shone with such precision that one could tell exactly when they were at their highest or lowest degree of brightness.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	northern	northern	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	lights	light	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
5	shone	shine	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	precision	precision	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	one	one	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	acl	_	_
13	exactly	exactly	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
14	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	22	advmod	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
16	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
18	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
19	highest	high	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	22	amod	_	_
20	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	lowest	low	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	19	conj	_	_
22	degree	degree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	ccomp	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	brightness	brightness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shine** | participle |  | the northern lights *not said here* |  |  |  | with such precision | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location with precision=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | could | one | such precision *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent precision=Recipient |
| 3 | **is** | past | lights *= light* |  |  | lights's highest degree |  | of brightness; exactly *property* | tree rules |

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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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