---
title: Soon the Sunbeam pierced its way through the snow to the root, and w… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Soon the Sunbeam pierced its way through the snow to the root, and within the root there was a stirring. Who acts: Sunbeam, stirring. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Snowdrop, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/177/4/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [The Snowdrop](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/177/) / 4

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Snowdrop, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Soon the Sunbeam pierced its way through the snow to the root, and within the root there was a stirring.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Sunbeam, stirring · **What happens:** pierce, be · **To what, where:** way

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Snowdrop. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Sunbeam, stirring), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:177:4
# text = Soon the Sunbeam pierced its way through the snow to the root, and within the root there was a stirring.
1	Soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Sunbeam	Sunbeam	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	pierced	pierce	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	through	through	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	root	root	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	within	within	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	root	root	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
18	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	19	expl	_	_
19	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	stirring	stirring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pierce** | past | the Sunbeam | Sunbeam's way |  |  |  | to the root; through the snow; soon *property* | vn poke-19-1 «NP V NP PP.patient»: agent=Agent way=Instrument through snow=Patient |
| 2 | **be** | past | a stirring |  |  | there |  | within the root | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/177/3/)
- next →: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/177/5/)
- ↑ back to [The Snowdrop](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/177/)