---
title: She saw them writing with their diamond pencils on golden slates, wh… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: She saw them writing with their diamond pencils on golden slates, while she looked at the beautiful picture-book which had cost half a kingdom. Who acts: light, insects, beautiful picture book. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 1, with its
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/208/44/)

<!-- 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 Wild Swans, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/208/) / 44

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 1, sentence 44

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She saw them writing with their diamond pencils on golden slates, while she looked at the beautiful picture-book which had cost half a kingdom.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** light, insects, beautiful picture book · **What happens:** see, write, look, cost · **To what, where:** insects, kingdom

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (light, insects, beautiful picture book), 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:pg27200:208:44
# text = She saw them writing with their diamond pencils on golden slates, while she looked at the beautiful picture-book which had cost half a kingdom.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	writing	write	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	xcomp	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
7	diamond	diamond	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	pencils	pencil	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	slates	slate	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
16	at	at	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
18	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
19	picture	picture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	book	book	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
22	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	24	nsubj	_	_
23	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	cost	cost	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	21	acl:relcl	_	_
25	half	half	DET	PDT	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac|PronType=Ind	27	det:predet	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	kingdom	kingdom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | light | insects *= insect* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **write** | gerund | insects *= insect* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with insects's diamond pencils on golden slates | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **look** | past | light |  |  |  |  | at the beautiful picture book | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at book=Theme |
| 4 | **cost** | past · perfect | the beautiful picture book | half kingdom |  |  |  |  | vn cost-54.2 «NP V NP.value»: agent=Theme kingdom=Value |

<!-- .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 43](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/208/43/)
- next →: [sentence 45](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/208/45/)
- ↑ back to [The Wild Swans, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/208/)