---
title: Behind us the wood is sharply defined; mighty trees surround us, and… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Behind us the wood is sharply defined; mighty trees surround us, and the yellow leaves flutter down from the branches. Who acts: mighty trees, yellow leaves. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Sunbeam and the Captive, with its dependency tree and the pragma
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Sunbeam and the Captive, sentence 4

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Behind us the wood is sharply defined; mighty trees surround us, and the yellow leaves flutter down from the branches.

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**Who acts:** mighty trees, yellow leaves · **What happens:** define, surround, flutter down · **To what, where:** wood, us, branches

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Sunbeam and the Captive. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mighty trees, yellow leaves), 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:pg27200:186:4
# text = Behind us the wood is sharply defined; mighty trees surround us, and the yellow leaves flutter down from the branches.
1	Behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	1	nmod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux:pass	_	_
6	sharply	sharply	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	defined	define	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	mighty	mighty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
11	surround	surround	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
12	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	leaves	leaf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
18	flutter	flutter	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
19	down	down	ADP	RP	_	18	compound:prt	_	_
20	from	from	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **define** | present · passive |  |  |  | the wood |  | sharply *property* | vn reflexive\_appearance-48.1.2 «NP V NP» |
| 2 | **surround** | present | mighty trees | us |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme we=Co-Theme |
| 3 | **flutter down** | present | the yellow leaves |  |  | the branches |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «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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