---
title: In a flash of lightning heaven opens, and we can look in; but the si… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: In a flash of lightning heaven opens, and we can look in; but the sight will strike even human beings blind. Who acts: we, sight, lightning heaven. 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 23

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In a flash of lightning heaven opens, and we can look in; but the sight will strike even human beings blind.

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**Who acts:** we, sight, lightning heaven · **What happens:** open, look in, strike, flash · **To what, where:** flash, human beings

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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 (we, sight, lightning heaven), 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:pg27200:14:23
# text = In a flash of lightning heaven opens, and we can look in; but the sight will strike even human beings blind.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	flash	flash	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	lightning	lightning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	heaven	heaven	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
7	opens	open	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
18	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	strike	strike	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
20	even	even	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
21	human	human	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	beings	being	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	_
23	blind	blind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **open** | present |  |  |  | a flash of lightning heaven |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in flash=Location |
| 2 | **look in** | can | we |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **strike** | future | the sight | human beings |  |  |  | blind *property* | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent being=Patient |
| 4 | **flash** |  | lightning heaven |  |  |  |  |  | nom flash «event intransitive»: of=agent |

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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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