---
title: Great black grasshoppers played the mouth organ, and the owl struck… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Great black grasshoppers played the mouth organ, and the owl struck herself on the body instead of a drum. Who acts: Great black grasshoppers, owl. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2, sentence 109

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Great black grasshoppers played the mouth organ, and the owl struck herself on the body instead of a drum.

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**Who acts:** Great black grasshoppers, owl · **What happens:** play, strike · **To what, where:** mouth organ, owl

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Great black grasshoppers, owl), 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:pg27200:197:109
# text = Great black grasshoppers played the mouth organ, and the owl struck herself on the body instead of a drum.
1	Great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
2	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	grasshoppers	grasshopper	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	organ	organ	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	owl	owl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	struck	strike	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
13	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	12	obj	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	instead	instead	ADV	RB	ExtPos=ADP	20	case	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	fixed	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	drum	drum	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **play** | past | Great black grasshoppers | the mouth organ |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent organ=Theme |
| 2 | **strike** | past | the owl | owl |  |  |  | instead a drum; on the body | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent herself=Instrument on body=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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