---
title: Sometimes when I woke, the storm-birds would fly about my legs. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Sometimes when I woke, the storm-birds would fly about my legs. Who acts: I, storm birds. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Garden of Paradise, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/140/39/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [The Garden of Paradise](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/140/) / 39

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Garden of Paradise, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Sometimes when I woke, the storm-birds would fly about my legs.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, storm birds · **What happens:** wake, fly

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Garden of Paradise. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, storm birds), 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:pg27200:140:39
# text = Sometimes when I woke, the storm-birds would fly about my legs.
1	Sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	4	advmod	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	woke	wake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	storm	storm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
10	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	fly	fly	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
12	about	about	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wake** | past | I |  |  |  |  | sometimes *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **fly** | would | the storm birds |  |  |  |  | about my legs | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent about leg=Location |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/140/38/)
- next →: [sentence 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/140/40/)
- ↑ back to [The Garden of Paradise](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/140/)