---
title: They came in clouds till the air became darkened with birds as it wa… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They came in clouds till the air became darkened with birds as it was with the cloud of locusts over the land of Egypt. Who acts: birds, flight. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Philosopher's Stone, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cla
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Philosopher's Stone, sentence 162

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They came in clouds till the air became darkened with birds as it was with the cloud of locusts over the land of Egypt.

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**Who acts:** birds, flight · **What happens:** come, darken, be · **To what, where:** clouds, land

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Philosopher's Stone. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (birds, flight), 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:pg27200:143:162
# text = They came in clouds till the air became darkened with birds as it was with the cloud of locusts over the land of Egypt.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	clouds	cloud	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
5	till	till	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
8	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	darkened	darken	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	parataxis	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	cloud	cloud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	advcl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	locusts	locust	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nmod	_	_
20	over	over	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	Egypt	Egypt	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | birds *= bird* |  |  | clouds |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in cloud=Location |
| 2 | **darken** | past · passive |  |  |  |  | till the air | with birds | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: with bird=Instrument |
| 3 | **is** | past | flight |  |  | the land of Egypt |  | with the cloud; of locusts | tree rules |

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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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