---
title: They were told it could not be, it was yet almost night, and as the… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They were told it could not be, it was yet almost night, and as the king slept they dared not disturb him. Who acts: thrush, king, brothers. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/210/21/)

<!-- 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 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/210/) / 21

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 3, sentence 21

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They were told it could not be, it was yet almost night, and as the king slept they dared not disturb him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** thrush, king, brothers · **What happens:** tell, not be, be, sleep, not dare, not disturb · **To what, where:** brothers, night, king · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thrush, king, brothers), 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:pg27200:210:21
# text = They were told it could not be, it was yet almost night, and as the king slept they dared not disturb him.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
12	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	slept	sleep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	dared	dare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	conj	_	_
22	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	21	advmod	_	_
23	disturb	disturb	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	_
24	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · passive |  | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **can** | could | thrush |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is a** | past | thrush | night |  |  | yet | almost *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **sleep** | past | the king |  |  |  |  |  | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **not** **dare** | past | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 6 | **not** **disturb** | infinitive | brothers *= brother* *not said here* | king |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus he=Experiencer |

<!-- .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 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/210/20/)
- next →: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/210/22/)
- ↑ back to [The Wild Swans, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/210/)