---
title: The moment they espied the stranger, they rushed to meet him with ou… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The moment they espied the stranger, they rushed to meet him with outstretched wings. Who acts: moment, swans. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Ugly Duckling, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Ugly Duckling, sentence 162

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The moment they espied the stranger, they rushed to meet him with outstretched wings.

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**Who acts:** moment, swans · **What happens:** espy, rush, meet, outstretch · **To what, where:** stranger, better

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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 (moment, swans), 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:pg27200:201:162
# text = The moment they espied the stranger, they rushed to meet him with outstretched wings.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	espied	espy	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	stranger	stranger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	rushed	rush	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	meet	meet	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	outstretched	outstretch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	amod	_	_
15	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **espy** | past | the moment | the stranger |  |  |  |  | vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer stranger=Stimulus |
| 2 | **rush** | past | swans *= swan* |  |  |  |  |  | vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Result |
| 3 | **meet** | to-infinitive | swans *= swan* *not said here* | better *= good* |  |  |  | with outstretched wings | vn satisfy-55.7 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent he=Theme with wing=Instrument |
| 4 | **outstretch** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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