---
title: Nature showed herself to him sometimes in the dark forests, at other… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Nature showed herself to him sometimes in the dark forests, at others in cheerful meadows where the storks were strutting about, or on the deck of a ship sailing across the foaming sea with the clear, blue sky above, or at night the glittering stars. " Who acts: Nature, storks, ship. A sentence of «
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/133/117/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old Street Lamp, sentence 117

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Nature showed herself to him sometimes in the dark forests, at others in cheerful meadows where the storks were strutting about, or on the deck of a ship sailing across the foaming sea with the clear, blue sky above, or at night the glittering stars. "

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**Who acts:** Nature, storks, ship · **What happens:** show, strut, sail, foam · **To what, where:** Nature, man, deck, foaming sea

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Street Lamp. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nature, storks, ship), 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:pg27200:133:117
# text = Nature showed herself to him sometimes in the dark forests, at others in cheerful meadows where the storks were strutting about, or on the deck of a ship sailing across the foaming sea with the clear, blue sky above, or at night the glittering stars. "
1	Nature	nature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	showed	show	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	2	obj	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	_
6	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	10	advmod	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	forests	forest	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	others	other	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	cheerful	cheerful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	meadows	meadow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	_
17	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	21	advmod	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	storks	stork	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj	_	_
20	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	strutting	strut	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	acl:relcl	_	_
22	about	about	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
24	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
25	on	on	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	deck	deck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
28	of	of	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	ship	ship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nmod	_	_
31	sailing	sail	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	30	acl	_	_
32	across	across	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
34	foaming	foam	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	35	amod	_	_
35	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl	_	_
36	with	with	ADP	IN	_	41	case	_	_
37	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	41	det	_	_
38	clear	clear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	41	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
39	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	38	punct	_	_
40	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	41	amod	_	_
41	sky	sky	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl	_	_
42	above	above	ADV	RB	_	41	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
43	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	46	punct	_	_
44	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	46	cc	_	_
45	at	at	ADP	IN	_	46	case	_	_
46	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl:unmarked	_	_
47	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	49	det	_	_
48	glittering	glittering	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	49	compound	_	_
49	stars	star	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	46	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
50	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
51	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **show** | past | Nature | Nature | man |  |  | at others in cheerful meadows; in the dark forests | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP PP.recipient PP.theme»: agent=Agent herself=Patient to he=Recipient in forest=Topic |
| 2 | **strut** | past · progressive | the storks |  |  | the deck of a ship | night | about *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on deck=Trajectory |
| 3 | **sail** | gerund | a ship *not said here* |  |  | the foaming sea |  | with the clear blue sky | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent across sea=Trajectory |
| 4 | **foam** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn entity\_specific\_modes\_being-47.2 «NP V»: agent=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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