---
title: He looked back and saw a couple of horsemen galloping a long distanc… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He looked back and saw a couple of horsemen galloping a long distance behind him, and there were other people with them. Who acts: sun, horsemen, other people. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 4, with its dependency tree and 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 4, sentence 11

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He looked back and saw a couple of horsemen galloping a long distance behind him, and there were other people with them.

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**Who acts:** sun, horsemen, other people · **What happens:** look back, see, gallop, be · **To what, where:** couple, long distance

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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 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sun, horsemen, other people), 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:pg27200:161:11
# text = He looked back and saw a couple of horsemen galloping a long distance behind him, and there were other people with them.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	back	back	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	couple	couple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	horsemen	horseman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	_
10	galloping	gallop	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	acl	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	distance	distance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
14	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	19	expl	_	_
19	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
20	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
22	with	with	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look back** | past | sun |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **see** | past | sun *not said here* | a couple of horsemen |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer couple=Stimulus |
| 3 | **gallop** | gerund | horsemen *not said here* | a long distance |  |  |  | behind sun | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent distance=Theme behind he=Trajectory |
| 4 | **be** | past | other people with horsemen |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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