---
title: The sea was dark blue, covered with ships full of white sails; and i… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The sea was dark blue, covered with ships full of white sails; and in the barn old women, maidens, and children were sitting picking hops into a large cask; the young sang songs, but the old told fairy tales of mountain-sprites and soothsayers. Who acts: sea, children, picking, young. A sentence of 
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Elderbush, sentence 123

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The sea was dark blue, covered with ships full of white sails; and in the barn old women, maidens, and children were sitting picking hops into a large cask; the young sang songs, but the old told fairy tales of mountain-sprites and soothsayers.

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**Who acts:** sea, children, picking, young, mountain sprites · **What happens:** be, cover, sit, hop, sing, tell · **To what, where:** barn, large cask, songs · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Elderbush. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sea, children, picking, young), 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:pg1597:17:123
# text = The sea was dark blue, covered with ships full of white sails; and in the barn old women, maidens, and children were sitting picking hops into a large cask; the young sang songs, but the old told fairy tales of mountain-sprites and soothsayers.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	covered	cover	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	ships	ship	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
10	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	sails	sail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	barn	barn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
19	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	women	woman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
22	maidens	maiden	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
25	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	nsubj	_	_
26	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	acl	_	_
28	picking	picking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nsubj	_	_
29	hops	hop	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	ccomp	_	_
30	into	into	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
31	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
32	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	33	amod	_	_
33	cask	cask	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	37	punct	_	_
35	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	37	nsubj	_	_
37	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
38	songs	song	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	37	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
39	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	45	punct	_	_
40	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	45	cc	_	_
41	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	45	det	_	_
42	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	45	amod	_	_
43	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	45	amod	_	_
44	fairy	fairy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	45	compound	_	_
45	tales	tale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	37	obl	_	_
46	of	of	ADP	IN	_	49	case	_	_
47	mountain	mountain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	49	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
48	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	47	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
49	sprites	sprite	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	45	nmod	_	_
50	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	51	cc	_	_
51	soothsayers	soothsayer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	49	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
52	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the sea |  |  |  |  | blue *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **cover** | participle | the sea *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with ships | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent with ship=Theme |
| 3 | **sit** | past · progressive | children | the barn and old women and maidens *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **hop** | present | picking |  |  | a large cask |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme into cask=Destination |
| 5 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | the young | songs |  |  |  | the old told fairy tales of mountain sprites and soothsayers *obl* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location song=Theme |
| 6 | **tell** *speech: assert* | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 7 | **tell** |  | mountain sprites and soothsayers |  |  |  |  |  | nom tale «communication intransitive»: of=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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