---
title: The entire coast was strewn with spoiled herrings, for there were so… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The entire coast was strewn with spoiled herrings, for there were so many of these fish that a net was scarcely thrown into the sea before it was filled. Who acts: many. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 4, with its dependency
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 4, sentence 84

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The entire coast was strewn with spoiled herrings, for there were so many of these fish that a net was scarcely thrown into the sea before it was filled.

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**Who acts:** many · **What happens:** strew, be, throw, fill · **To what, where:** entire coast, net, sea

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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 (many), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg27200:11004`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg27200:161:84
# text = The entire coast was strewn with spoiled herrings, for there were so many of these fish that a net was scarcely thrown into the sea before it was filled.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	entire	entire	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	coast	coast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	strewn	strew	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	spoiled	spoiled	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	herrings	herring	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	12	expl	_	_
12	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
13	so	so	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	nsubj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	17	det	_	_
17	fish	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nmod	_	_
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	net	net	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj:pass	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux:pass	_	_
22	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	thrown	throw	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	advcl	_	_
24	into	into	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
27	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	30	mark	_	_
28	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj:pass	_	_
29	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	30	aux:pass	_	_
30	filled	fill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	23	advcl	_	_
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **strew** | past · passive |  | the entire coast |  |  |  | with spoiled herrings | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.destination PP.theme»: subject=Destination with herring=Theme |
| 2 | **be** | past | many of this fish |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **throw** | past · passive |  | a net |  |  |  | into the sea *result*; scarcely *property* | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.result»: subject=Theme into sea=Result |
| 4 | **fill** | past · passive |  | net |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: subject=Patient |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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