---
title: It seemed to Jurgen as if the loose sand was giving way under his fe… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It seemed to Jurgen as if the loose sand was giving way under his feet. Who acts: It, loose sand. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 3, sentence 66

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It seemed to Jurgen as if the loose sand was giving way under his feet.

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**Who acts:** It, loose sand · **What happens:** seem, give · **To what, where:** Jurgen, way, feet

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It, loose sand), 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:pg27200:160:66
# text = It seemed to Jurgen as if the loose sand was giving way under his feet.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	Jurgen	Jurgen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
5	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	loose	loose	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	sand	sand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	giving	give	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
12	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
13	under	under	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | past | It |  | Jurgen |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **give** | past · progressive | the loose sand | way |  | Jurgen's feet |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=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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