---
title: Do not look at the lightning when the cloud bursts; even men cannot… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Do not look at the lightning when the cloud bursts; even men cannot do that. Who acts: you, cloud, men. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Buckwheat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Buckwheat, sentence 22

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Do not look at the lightning when the cloud bursts; even men cannot do that.

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**Who acts:** you, cloud, men · **What happens:** not look, burst, not do · **To what, where:** that

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Buckwheat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, cloud, men), 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:pg27200:14:22
# text = Do not look at the lightning when the cloud bursts; even men cannot do that.
1	Do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
2	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	look	look	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	lightning	lightning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	10	mark	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	cloud	cloud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	bursts	burst	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
12	even	even	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
14	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **look** | imperative · do-support | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at the lightning | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at lightning=Theme |
| 2 | **burst** | present | the cloud |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **do** | can | men | that |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Eventuality |

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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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