---
title: When the sun was about to set, Eliza saw eleven white swans with gol… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: When the sun was about to set, Eliza saw eleven white swans with golden crowns on their heads, flying towards the land, one behind the other, like a long white ribbon. Who acts: sun, Eliza. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 1, with its dep
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 1, sentence 85

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When the sun was about to set, Eliza saw eleven white swans with golden crowns on their heads, flying towards the land, one behind the other, like a long white ribbon.

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**Who acts:** sun, Eliza · **What happens:** be, set, see, fly · **To what, where:** eleven white swans, land · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (sun, Eliza), 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:pg27200:208:85
# text = When the sun was about to set, Eliza saw eleven white swans with golden crowns on their heads, flying towards the land, one behind the other, like a long white ribbon.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	about	about	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	set	set	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	Eliza	Eliza	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
11	eleven	eleven	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
12	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	swans	swan	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	crowns	crown	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	26	csubj	_	_
22	towards	towards	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
26	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	obj	_	_
27	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	35	punct	_	_
31	like	like	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
32	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
33	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	35	amod	_	_
34	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	35	amod	_	_
35	ribbon	ribbon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the sun |  |  |  |  | about *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **set** | to-infinitive | the sun *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **see** | past | Eliza | eleven white swans |  |  |  | with golden crowns on crowns's heads; like a long white ribbon | tree rules |
| 4 | **fly** | gerund |  |  |  | the land |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme towards land=Destination |

<!-- .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.

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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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