---
title: My light was faint, my face pale as the water lily that, torn from i… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: My light was faint, my face pale as the water lily that, torn from its stem, has been drifting for weeks with the tide. Who acts: light, face, My. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Ninth Evening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Ninth Evening, sentence 8

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My light was faint, my face pale as the water lily that, torn from its stem, has been drifting for weeks with the tide.

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**Who acts:** light, face, My · **What happens:** be, tear, drift, light, stem · **To what, where:** water lily

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Ninth Evening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (light, face, My), 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:pg27200:100:8
# text = My light was faint, my face pale as the water lily that, torn from its stem, has been drifting for weeks with the tide.
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	faint	faint	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	pale	pale	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
9	as	as	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	lily	lily	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
13	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	torn	tear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	acl:relcl	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	stem	stem	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	22	aux	_	_
22	drifting	drift	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
23	for	for	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	weeks	week	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl	_	_
25	with	with	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	tide	tide	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | My light |  |  |  |  | faint *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | my face |  |  |  |  | as the water lily | tree rules |
| 3 | **tear** | participle · passive |  | the water lily |  |  |  | from face's stem | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: subject=Patient from stem=Co-Patient |
| 4 | **drift** | present · perfect · progressive | My light *not said here* |  |  |  | week | with the tide | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **light** |  | My |  |  |  |  |  | nom light «phenomenon transitive»: poss=agent |
| 6 | **stem** |  | face |  |  |  |  |  | nom stem «communication 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:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (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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