---
title: His thoughts were like a loose thread fluttering to and fro in the w… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: His thoughts were like a loose thread fluttering to and fro in the wind. Who acts: thoughts, loose thread, Knud. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, part 2, sentence 35

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His thoughts were like a loose thread fluttering to and fro in the wind.

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**Who acts:** thoughts, loose thread, Knud · **What happens:** be, flutter, fro, think · **To what, where:** wind

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, 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 (thoughts, loose thread, Knud), 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:pg27200:203:35
# text = His thoughts were like a loose thread fluttering to and fro in the wind.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	thoughts	thought	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	like	like	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	loose	loose	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	thread	thread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	fluttering	flutter	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	acl	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	fixed	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	fro	fro	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Knud's thoughts |  |  |  |  | like a loose thread | tree rules |
| 2 | **flutter** | gerund | a loose thread *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **fro** | infinitive | a loose thread *not said here* |  |  | the wind |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **think** |  | Knud |  |  |  |  |  | nom thought «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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