---
title: The top saw it flying high in the air, like a bird, till it would go… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The top saw it flying high in the air, like a bird, till it would go quite out of sight. Who acts: top, more. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Top and Ball, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Top and Ball, sentence 21

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The top saw it flying high in the air, like a bird, till it would go quite out of sight.

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**Who acts:** top, more · **What happens:** see, fly, go · **To what, where:** more, air, sight

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Top and Ball. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (top, more), 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:pg27200:195:21
# text = The top saw it flying high in the air, like a bird, till it would go quite out of sight.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	xcomp	_	_
6	high	high	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	5	advmod	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	like	like	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
19	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
20	out	out	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | the top | more |  |  |  | like a bird | tree rules |
| 2 | **fly** | gerund | more *not said here* |  |  | the air |  | high *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in air=Location |
| 3 | **go** | would | more |  |  | sight |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme out sight=Initial\_Location |

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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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