---
title: He said, "I looked down from the silent sky upon the driving clouds,… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He said, "I looked down from the silent sky upon the driving clouds, and saw the great shadows chasing each other across the earth. Who acts: Moon, great shadows. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Thirty-first Evening, with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Thirty-first Evening, sentence 2

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He said, "I looked down from the silent sky upon the driving clouds, and saw the great shadows chasing each other across the earth.

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**Who acts:** Moon, great shadows · **What happens:** say, look down, see, chase · **To what, where:** great shadows, each, earth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Thirty-first Evening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Moon, great shadows), 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:pg27200:122:2
# text = He said, "I looked down from the silent sky upon the driving clouds, and saw the great shadows chasing each other across the earth.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
4	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
7	down	down	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
8	from	from	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	silent	silent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	sky	sky	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
12	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	driving	driving	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	clouds	cloud	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	shadows	shadow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	_
22	chasing	chase	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	21	acl	_	_
23	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	22	obj	_	_
24	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	fixed	_	_
25	across	across	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Moon |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **look down** *in a quote* | past | Moon |  |  |  |  | upon the driving clouds; from the silent sky; down *property* | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent from sky=Theme |
| 3 | **see** *in a quote* | past | Moon *not said here* | the great shadows |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer shadow=Stimulus |
| 4 | **chase** *in a quote* | gerund | the great shadows *not said here* | each |  | the earth |  |  | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent each=Theme across earth=Trajectory |

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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:** «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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