---
title: This night it is a horrible pit to devour up lives, and to-morrow, p… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: This night it is a horrible pit to devour up lives, and to-morrow, perhaps, it may be a glassy mirror--even as in the old time that we have buried. Who acts: night, Sea. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bishop of Borglum and His Warriors, with its depende
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Bishop of Borglum and His Warriors, sentence 123

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
This night it is a horrible pit to devour up lives, and to-morrow, perhaps, it may be a glassy mirror--even as in the old time that we have buried.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** night, Sea · **What happens:** be, devour up, bury · **To what, where:** horrible pit, lives, glassy mirror, old time

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bishop of Borglum and His Warriors. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (night, Sea), 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:pg27200:12:123
# text = This night it is a horrible pit to devour up lives, and to-morrow, perhaps, it may be a glassy mirror--even as in the old time that we have buried.
1	This	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	det	_	_
2	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	horrible	horrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	pit	pit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	devour	devour	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	acl	_	_
10	up	up	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	lives	life	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	morrow	morrow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
18	perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
21	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
22	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	cop	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	glassy	glassy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	mirror	mirror	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	even	even	ADV	RB	_	32	advmod	_	_
28	as	as	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
29	in	in	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
31	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl:unmarked	_	_
33	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	36	nsubj:pass	_	_
34	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	36	nsubj:pass	_	_
35	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	36	aux	_	_
36	buried	bury	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	32	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | this night | a horrible pit and morrow and a glassy mirror |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **devour up** | to-infinitive |  | lives |  |  |  |  | vn devour-39.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=Patient |
| 3 | **is a** | may | Sea | a glassy mirror |  |  | time | perhaps *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **bury** | present · perfect · passive |  | the old time |  |  |  |  | vn put-9.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |

<!-- .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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