---
title: By their manner, it appeared as if they were seeking for something. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: By their manner, it appeared as if they were seeking for something. Who acts: it, people. 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 tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, What the First Little Mouse Saw and Heard on Her Travels, sentence 29

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By their manner, it appeared as if they were seeking for something.

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**Who acts:** it, people · **What happens:** appear, seek

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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 (it, people), 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:pg27200:179:29
# text = By their manner, it appeared as if they were seeking for something.
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	manner	manner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	appeared	appear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	seeking	seek	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
12	for	for	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **appear** | past | it |  |  |  |  | by people's manner | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by manner=Location |
| 2 | **seek** | past · progressive | people |  |  |  |  | for something | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent for something=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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