---
title: The birds flew quite close to her, and at last it seemed to her as i… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The birds flew quite close to her, and at last it seemed to her as if they became black as crows, and then all was night before her eyes. Who acts: birds, last. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Poultry Meg's Family, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Poultry Meg's Family, sentence 118

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The birds flew quite close to her, and at last it seemed to her as if they became black as crows, and then all was night before her eyes.

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**Who acts:** birds, last · **What happens:** fly, seem, become, be · **To what, where:** eyes, seashore, night

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Poultry Meg's Family. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (birds, last), 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:pg27200:149:118
# text = The birds flew quite close to her, and at last it seemed to her as if they became black as crows, and then all was night before her eyes.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	close	close	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	nsubj	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
13	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	_
16	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
20	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	xcomp	_	_
21	as	as	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	crows	crow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
25	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	28	advmod	_	_
26	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	28	det	_	_
27	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
28	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl:unmarked	_	_
29	before	before	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	31	nmod:poss	_	_
31	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | past | the birds |  |  | seashore's eyes |  | close *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent before eye=Location |
| 2 | **seem** | past | last |  | seashore |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **become** | past | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  | black *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **is a** | past |  | all night |  |  | then |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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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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