---
title: He was like a rare plant, torn from its native soil, and tossed upon… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He was like a rare plant, torn from its native soil, and tossed upon the beach to wither there. Who acts: end, plant. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 5, 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 5, sentence 77

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He was like a rare plant, torn from its native soil, and tossed upon the beach to wither there.

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**Who acts:** end, plant · **What happens:** be, tear, toss, wither, soil · **To what, where:** rare plant, native soil, beach

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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 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (end, plant), 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:pg27200:162:77
# text = He was like a rare plant, torn from its native soil, and tossed upon the beach to wither there.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	like	like	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	rare	rare	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	plant	plant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	torn	tear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl	_	_
9	from	from	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
11	native	native	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	soil	soil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	tossed	toss	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
16	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	beach	beach	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	wither	wither	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	advcl	_	_
21	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | end |  |  |  |  | like a rare plant | tree rules |
| 2 | **tear** | participle |  | a rare plant *not said here* |  | plant's native soil |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme from soil=Trajectory |
| 3 | **toss** | past |  |  |  | the beach |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent upon beach=Destination |
| 4 | **wither** | to-infinitive |  |  |  | there |  |  | vn entity\_specific\_cos-45.5 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **soil** |  | plant |  |  |  |  |  | nom soil «state transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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