---
title: And they spoke of the way in which the sand-dunes had come inland, a… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: And they spoke of the way in which the sand-dunes had come inland, and it seemed very easy to understand. Who acts: Ours, sand dunes, it. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ever
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/159/97/)

<!-- 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/) / [A Story From the Sand-hills, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/159/) / 97

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 2, sentence 97

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And they spoke of the way in which the sand-dunes had come inland, and it seemed very easy to understand.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Ours, sand dunes, it · **What happens:** speak, come, seem, understand · **To what, where:** way · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ours, sand dunes, it), 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:pg27200:159:97
# text = And they spoke of the way in which the sand-dunes had come inland, and it seemed very easy to understand.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	obl	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	sand	sand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	dunes	dune	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	come	come	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	acl:relcl	_	_
15	inland	inland	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
20	very	very	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	easy	easy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	xcomp	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | Ours *= our* |  |  |  |  | of the way | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **come** | past · perfect | the sand dunes |  |  | the way |  | inland *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in which=Location |
| 3 | **seem** | past | it |  |  |  |  | easy *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **understand** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .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 96](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/159/96/)
- next →: [sentence 98](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/159/98/)
- ↑ back to [A Story From the Sand-hills, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/159/)