---
title: But the sister and brothers sat holding each other's hands, and sing… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But the sister and brothers sat holding each other's hands, and singing hymns, from which they gained hope and courage. Who acts: sister, brothers. 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 c
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/209/37/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 2, sentence 37

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But the sister and brothers sat holding each other's hands, and singing hymns, from which they gained hope and courage.

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**Who acts:** sister, brothers · **What happens:** sit, hold, sing, gain · **To what, where:** hands, hymns, hope

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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 (sister, brothers), 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:pg27200:209:37
# text = But the sister and brothers sat holding each other's hands, and singing hymns, from which they gained hope and courage.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	conj	_	_
6	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
8	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	9	det	_	_
9	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	's	's	PART	POS	_	9	case	_	_
11	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
15	hymns	hymn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	from	from	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	obl	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	gained	gain	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
21	hope	hope	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	courage	courage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | the sister and brothers |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **hold** | gerund | the sister and brothers *not said here* | each other's hands |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hand=Theme |
| 3 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | the sister and brothers *not said here* | hymns |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location hymn=Theme |
| 4 | **gain** | past | brothers *= brother* | hope and courage |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent hope=Theme from which=Source |

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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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