---
title: The boat whirled round three or four times, and then filled with wat… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The boat whirled round three or four times, and then filled with water to the very edge; nothing could save it from sinking. Who acts: boat. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Brave Tin Soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Brave Tin Soldier, sentence 53

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The boat whirled round three or four times, and then filled with water to the very edge; nothing could save it from sinking.

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**Who acts:** boat · **What happens:** whirl, fill, save, sink · **To what, where:** boat, edge

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Brave Tin Soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boat), 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:pg27200:192:53
# text = The boat whirled round three or four times, and then filled with water to the very edge; nothing could save it from sinking.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	boat	boat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
3	whirled	whirl	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	_
4	round	round	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	nummod	_	_
6	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	conj	_	_
8	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	12	advmod	_	_
12	filled	fill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	very	very	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	edge	edge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	22	nsubj	_	_
21	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	_
24	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
25	sinking	sink	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	22	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **whirl** | participle |  | the boat *not said here* |  |  | time |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **fill** | participle |  | the boat *not said here* |  |  | then | with water; to the edge | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent with water=Instrument |
| 3 | **save** | could | the boat | edge |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 4 | **sink** | gerund | the boat *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

<!-- .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.

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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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