---
title: In olden times a flock of swans flew over the Alps to the green plai… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: In olden times a flock of swans flew over the Alps to the green plains around Milan, where it was delightful to dwell. Who acts: flock, it. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Swan's Nest, 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/pg27200/187/2/)

<!-- 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 Swan's Nest](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/187/) / 2

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Swan's Nest, sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In olden times a flock of swans flew over the Alps to the green plains around Milan, where it was delightful to dwell.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** flock, it · **What happens:** fly, be, dwell · **To what, where:** Alps

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Swan's Nest. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (flock, it), 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:pg27200:187:2
# text = In olden times a flock of swans flew over the Alps to the green plains around Milan, where it was delightful to dwell.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	olden	olden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	flock	flock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	swans	swan	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nmod	_	_
8	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	over	over	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Alps	Alp	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	plains	plain	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
16	around	around	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	Milan	Milan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	22	advmod	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
22	delightful	delightful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	conj	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	dwell	dwell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | past | a flock of swans |  |  | the Alps | time | to the green plains around Milan | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over alp=Location |
| 2 | **is** | past | it |  |  |  |  | delightful *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **dwell** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | 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 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/187/1/)
- next →: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/187/3/)
- ↑ back to [The Swan's Nest](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/187/)