---
title: In front of the castle a number of little trees surrounded a piece o… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: In front of the castle a number of little trees surrounded a piece of looking-glass, which was intended to represent a transparent lake. Who acts: little trees, piece. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Brave Tin Soldier, with its dependency tree and the pr
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/192/8/)

<!-- 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 Brave Tin Soldier](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/192/) / 8

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Brave Tin Soldier, sentence 8

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In front of the castle a number of little trees surrounded a piece of looking-glass, which was intended to represent a transparent lake.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** little trees, piece · **What happens:** surround, look, intend, represent · **To what, where:** piece, glass, transparent lake

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (little trees, piece), 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:pg27200:192:8
# text = In front of the castle a number of little trees surrounded a piece of looking-glass, which was intended to represent a transparent lake.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	number	number	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	_
11	surrounded	surround	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
15	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	glass	glass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	intended	intend	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	17	acl:relcl	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	represent	represent	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	transparent	transparent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	lake	lake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **surround** | participle | little trees *not said here* | a piece |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme piece=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **look** | gerund | a piece *not said here* | glass |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme glass=Attribute |
| 3 | **intend** | past · passive |  | glass |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **represent** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  | a transparent lake |  |  |  |  | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot lake=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 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/192/7/)
- next →: [sentence 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/192/9/)
- ↑ back to [The Brave Tin Soldier](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/192/)