---
title: To many eyes the characters seem so mixed in confusion that the word… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: To many eyes the characters seem so mixed in confusion that the words cannot be distinguished. Who acts: many eyes, confusion. 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 clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Philosopher's Stone, sentence 39

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To many eyes the characters seem so mixed in confusion that the words cannot be distinguished.

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**Who acts:** many eyes, confusion · **What happens:** seem, mix, not distinguish · **To what, where:** confusion, words

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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 (many eyes, confusion), 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:pg27200:143:39
# text = To many eyes the characters seem so mixed in confusion that the words cannot be distinguished.
1	To	to	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	characters	character	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	conj	_	_
6	seem	seem	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	so	so	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	mixed	mix	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	xcomp	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	confusion	confusion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj:pass	_	_
14	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
16	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	distinguished	distinguish	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | present | many eyes and the characters |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 2 | **mix** | participle | many eyes and the characters *not said here* |  |  | confusion |  |  | vn mix-22.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **not** **distinguish** | can · passive | confusion *not said here* | the words |  |  |  |  | vn distinguish-23.5-1 «NP V NP PP»: subject=Theme |

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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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