---
title: Some were like great porcupines, others like twisted serpents with t… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Some were like great porcupines, others like twisted serpents with their heads stretching out, and some few were like little fat bears with their hair bristled; but all were dazzlingly white, and all were living snow-flakes. Who acts: heads, few, all. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian And
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Lapland Woman and the Finland Woman, sentence 37

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Some were like great porcupines, others like twisted serpents with their heads stretching out, and some few were like little fat bears with their hair bristled; but all were dazzlingly white, and all were living snow-flakes.

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**Who acts:** heads, few, all · **What happens:** be, stretch out, bristle · **To what, where:** hair, living snow flakes

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Lapland Woman and the Finland Woman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (heads, few, all), 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:pg27200:175:37
# text = Some were like great porcupines, others like twisted serpents with their heads stretching out, and some few were like little fat bears with their hair bristled; but all were dazzlingly white, and all were living snow-flakes.
1	Some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	5	det	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	like	like	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	porcupines	porcupine	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	others	other	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
8	like	like	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	twisted	twisted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	serpents	serpent	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	_
14	stretching	stretch	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	acl	_	_
15	out	out	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
18	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	19	det	_	_
19	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	nsubj	_	_
20	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
21	like	like	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
23	fat	fat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	compound	_	_
24	bears	bear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
25	with	with	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	_
28	bristled	bristle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	27	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	34	punct	_	_
30	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	34	cc	_	_
31	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	34	nsubj	_	_
32	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	34	cop	_	_
33	dazzlingly	dazzlingly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	amod	_	_
34	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	42	punct	_	_
36	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	42	cc	_	_
37	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	42	det	_	_
38	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	42	cop	_	_
39	living	living	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	42	amod	_	_
40	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	42	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
41	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	40	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	flakes	flake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	34	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
43	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	34	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | like some great porcupines and others like twisted serpents with flakes's heads and little fat bears | tree rules |
| 2 | **stretch out** | gerund | flakes's heads *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | past | some few |  |  |  |  | like little fat bears; with flakes's hair | tree rules |
| 4 | **bristle** | participle |  | flakes's hair *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn bulge-47.5.3 «NP V»: agent=Location |
| 5 | **is** | past | all |  |  |  |  | white *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **is a** | past |  | all living snow flakes |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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