---
title: The snow creaked and crackled beneath her feet, as if she had been t… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The snow creaked and crackled beneath her feet, as if she had been treading on starch. Who acts: snow. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Man, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Snow Man, sentence 40

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The snow creaked and crackled beneath her feet, as if she had been treading on starch.

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**Who acts:** snow · **What happens:** creak, crackle, tread · **To what, where:** feet, starch

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Snow Man. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (snow), 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:pg27200:169:40
# text = The snow creaked and crackled beneath her feet, as if she had been treading on starch.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	creaked	creak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	crackled	crackle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	beneath	beneath	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
11	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	15	aux	_	_
15	treading	tread	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	starch	starch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **creak** | past | the snow |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **crackle** | past | the snow *not said here* |  |  | snow's feet |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme beneath foot=Location |
| 3 | **tread** | past · perfect · progressive | snow |  |  | starch |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on starch=Trajectory |

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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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