---
title: There were great lakes also which looked as black as ink at a distan… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There were great lakes also which looked as black as ink at a distance, but were quite clear when I came close to them. Who acts: great lakes, I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What the First Little Mouse Saw and Heard on Her Travels, with its dependency tr
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, What the First Little Mouse Saw and Heard on Her Travels, sentence 10

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There were great lakes also which looked as black as ink at a distance, but were quite clear when I came close to them.

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**Who acts:** great lakes, I · **What happens:** be, look, come

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What the First Little Mouse Saw and Heard on Her Travels. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (great lakes, I), 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:pg27200:179:10
# text = There were great lakes also which looked as black as ink at a distance, but were quite clear when I came close to them.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
3	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	lakes	lake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
5	also	also	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	as	as	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
10	as	as	ADP	IN	_	9	fixed	_	_
11	ink	ink	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	distance	distance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	clear	clear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	parataxis	_	_
20	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	22	advmod	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	advcl	_	_
23	close	close	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	22	advmod	_	_
24	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | great lakes *not said here* |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **look** | past | great lakes |  |  |  |  | as black ink; at a distance | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at distance=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | clear *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **come** | past | I |  |  |  |  | close *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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