---
title: And then they pressed towards her, and would have destroyed the coat… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: And then they pressed towards her, and would have destroyed the coats of mail, but at the same moment eleven wild swans flew over her, and alighted on the cart. Who acts: pieces, wild swans. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 3, with its de
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Wild Swans, part 3, sentence 34

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And then they pressed towards her, and would have destroyed the coats of mail, but at the same moment eleven wild swans flew over her, and alighted on the cart.

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**Who acts:** pieces, wild swans · **What happens:** press, destroy, fly, alight · **To what, where:** coats, cart

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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 (pieces, wild 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:pg27200:210:34
# text = And then they pressed towards her, and would have destroyed the coats of mail, but at the same moment eleven wild swans flew over her, and alighted on the cart.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	pressed	press	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	towards	towards	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	aux	_	_
11	destroyed	destroy	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	coats	coat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	mail	mail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
17	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	_
22	eleven	eleven	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	21	flat	_	_
23	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	swans	swan	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nsubj	_	_
25	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
26	over	over	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
30	alighted	alight	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	25	conj	_	_
31	on	on	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
32	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
33	cart	cart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **press** | past | pieces *= piece* |  |  |  | then | towards swan | vn push-12-1-1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent towards she=Trajectory |
| 2 | **destroy** | would · perfect | pieces *= piece* *not said here* | the coats of mail |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent coat=Patient |
| 3 | **fly** | past | wild swans |  |  |  | moment | over horse | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over she=Location |
| 4 | **alight** | participle | wild swans *not said here* |  |  | the cart |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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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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