---
title: They looked up, and discovered a large white swan hovering in the ai… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They looked up, and discovered a large white swan hovering in the air, and singing as never bird sang before. Who acts: towns, large white swan, bird. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/197/16/)

<!-- 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 Travelling Companion, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/197/) / 16

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Travelling Companion, part 2, sentence 16

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They looked up, and discovered a large white swan hovering in the air, and singing as never bird sang before.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** towns, large white swan, bird · **What happens:** look up, discover, hover, sing, not sing · **To what, where:** large white swan, air

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (towns, large white swan, bird), 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:pg27200:197:16
# text = They looked up, and discovered a large white swan hovering in the air, and singing as never bird sang before.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	up	up	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	discovered	discover	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
8	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
9	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	swan	swan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
11	hovering	hover	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	acl	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
18	as	as	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	21	advmod	_	_
20	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
22	before	before	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look up** | past | towns *= town* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **discover** | past | towns *= town* *not said here* | a large white swan |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent swan=Topic |
| 3 | **hover** | gerund | a large white swan *not said here* |  |  | the air |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in air=Location |
| 4 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | towns *= town* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **not** **sing** *speech: express* | past | bird |  |  |  |  | before *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |

<!-- .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 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/197/15/)
- next →: [sentence 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/197/17/)
- ↑ back to [The Travelling Companion, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/197/)