---
title: The sea lay before him, clear and blue, and the mussel shells and pe… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The sea lay before him, clear and blue, and the mussel shells and pebbles, the playthings of his childhood, crunched over his feet. Who acts: sea, mussel shells. 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 an
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 4, sentence 3

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The sea lay before him, clear and blue, and the mussel shells and pebbles, the playthings of his childhood, crunched over his feet.

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**Who acts:** sea, mussel shells · **What happens:** lie, crunch · **To what, where:** 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 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sea, mussel shells), 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:pg27200:161:3
# text = The sea lay before him, clear and blue, and the mussel shells and pebbles, the playthings of his childhood, crunched over his feet.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	before	before	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	clear	clear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	parataxis	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	mussel	mussel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	shells	shell	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nsubj	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	pebbles	pebble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	playthings	plaything	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	conj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	childhood	childhood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
24	crunched	crunch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
25	over	over	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past | the sea |  |  |  | before sun |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before he=Location |
| 2 | **crunch** | participle | the mussel shells and pebbles and the playthings of sun's childhood |  |  | sun's feet |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over foot=Location |

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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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