---
title: There swims a piece of newspaper; what is written upon it has been f… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There swims a piece of newspaper; what is written upon it has been forgotten long ago, and yet it gives itself airs. Who acts: newspaper. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Darning-needle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Darning-needle, sentence 25

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There swims a piece of newspaper; what is written upon it has been forgotten long ago, and yet it gives itself airs.

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**Who acts:** newspaper · **What happens:** swim, write, forget, give · **To what, where:** piece, newspaper, airs

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Darning-needle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (newspaper), 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:pg27200:21:25
# text = There swims a piece of newspaper; what is written upon it has been forgotten long ago, and yet it gives itself airs.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	swims	swim	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	newspaper	newspaper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
8	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	written	write	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	advcl	_	_
11	upon	upon	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	15	aux:pass	_	_
15	forgotten	forget	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	advcl	_	_
16	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	17	advmod	_	_
17	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	gives	give	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
23	itself	itself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	22	iobj	_	_
24	airs	air	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swim** | present |  | a piece of newspaper |  | there |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme piece=Trajectory |
| 2 | **write** | present · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 3 | **forget** | present · perfect · passive |  | newspaper |  |  |  | ago *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **give** | present | newspaper |  | airs |  | yet |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent itself=Recipient air=Theme |

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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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