---
title: Alas! she was the cause of their not advancing more quickly. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Alas! she was the cause of their not advancing more quickly. Who acts: Eliza, swans. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 2, sentence 25

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Alas! she was the cause of their not advancing more quickly.

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**Who acts:** Eliza, swans · **What happens:** be, not advance · **To what, where:** cause

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, 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 (Eliza, 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:pg27200:209:25
# text = Alas! she was the cause of their not advancing more quickly.
1	Alas	alas	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
3	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	cause	cause	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	advancing	advance	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
11	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	12	advmod	_	_
12	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Eliza | the cause |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **advance** | gerund | swans *= swan* | the cause *not said here* |  |  |  | quickly *property* | vn caused\_calibratable\_cos-45.6.2-1 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Causer cause=Patient |

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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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