---
title: Dark clouds came nearer, the gusts of wind told of a coming storm, w… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Dark clouds came nearer, the gusts of wind told of a coming storm, while from a thick, heavy mass of clouds the lightning burst forth flash after flash. Who acts: Dark clouds, lightning. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 2, with its depend
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/209/28/)

<!-- 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 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/209/) / 28

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 2, sentence 28

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Dark clouds came nearer, the gusts of wind told of a coming storm, while from a thick, heavy mass of clouds the lightning burst forth flash after flash.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Dark clouds, lightning · **What happens:** come, tell, burst · **To what, where:** gusts, thick heavy mass, clouds · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Dark clouds, lightning), 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:pg27200:209:28
# text = Dark clouds came nearer, the gusts of wind told of a coming storm, while from a thick, heavy mass of clouds the lightning burst forth flash after flash.
1	Dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	clouds	cloud	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	nearer	near	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	gusts	gust	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
10	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	acl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	coming	come	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	amod	_	_
14	storm	storm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
16	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
17	from	from	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
19	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
21	heavy	heavy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	mass	mass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	clouds	cloud	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nmod	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	lightning	lightning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	_
27	burst	burst	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	acl:relcl	_	_
28	forth	forth	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
29	flash	flash	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	xcomp	_	_
30	after	after	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	flash	flash	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | Dark clouds | the gusts of wind |  | a thick heavy mass of clouds |  | near *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme from mass=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | participle |  | the gusts of wind *not said here* |  |  |  | of a coming storm | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **come** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **burst** | past | the lightning | clouds *not said here* |  |  | after flash | flash *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location cloud=Theme |

<!-- .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 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/209/27/)
- next →: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/209/29/)
- ↑ back to [The Wild Swans, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/209/)