---
title: As they mounted higher and higher in the air, the ugly little duckli… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: As they mounted higher and higher in the air, the ugly little duckling felt quite a strange sensation as he watched them. Who acts: ducklings, ugly little duckling, air. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Ugly Duckling, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Ugly Duckling, sentence 135

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As they mounted higher and higher in the air, the ugly little duckling felt quite a strange sensation as he watched them.

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**Who acts:** ducklings, ugly little duckling, air · **What happens:** mount, feel, watch · **To what, where:** air, strange sensation, ducklings

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Ugly Duckling. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ducklings, ugly little duckling, air), 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:pg27200:201:135
# text = As they mounted higher and higher in the air, the ugly little duckling felt quite a strange sensation as he watched them.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	mounted	mount	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
4	higher	high	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	xcomp	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	higher	high	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	conj	_	_
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	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	ugly	ugly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	duckling	duckling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	quite	quite	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	19	det:predet	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	sensation	sensation	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
20	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	watched	watch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
23	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mount** | past | ducklings *= duckling* |  |  | the air |  | high *property* | vn put-9.1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent in air=Destination |
| 2 | **feel** | past | the ugly little duckling | quite strange sensation |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sensation=Theme |
| 3 | **watch** | past | air | ducklings *= duckling* |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |

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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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