---
title: Not a bird was to be seen, not a sunbeam could penetrate through the… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Not a bird was to be seen, not a sunbeam could penetrate through the large, dark boughs of the trees. Who acts: sunbeam. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/208/60/)

<!-- 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/) / 60

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 1, sentence 60

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Not a bird was to be seen, not a sunbeam could penetrate through the large, dark boughs of the trees.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sunbeam · **What happens:** see, not penetrate · **To what, where:** bird, large dark boughs

<!-- .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 (sunbeam), 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:pg27200:208:60
# text = Not a bird was to be seen, not a sunbeam could penetrate through the large, dark boughs of the trees.
1	Not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux:pass	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	sunbeam	sunbeam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	penetrate	penetrate	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
14	through	through	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
16	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
18	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	boughs	bough	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past · passive |  | a bird |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Stimulus |
| 2 | **not** **penetrate** | could | a sunbeam |  |  | the large dark boughs of the trees |  |  | vn poke-19 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 59](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/208/59/)
- next →: [sentence 61](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/208/61/)
- ↑ back to [The Wild Swans, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/208/)