---
title: "'The mortals are drying up our meadows; they've taken to draining. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "'The mortals are drying up our meadows; they've taken to draining. Who acts: mortals. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Will-o-the Wisp Is in the Town, Says the Moor Woman, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Will-o-the Wisp Is in the Town, Says the Moor Woman, sentence 189

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"'The mortals are drying up our meadows; they've taken to draining.

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**Who acts:** mortals · **What happens:** dry up, take, drain · **To what, where:** meadows

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Will-o-the Wisp Is in the Town, Says the Moor Woman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mortals), 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:pg27200:211:189
# text = "'The mortals are drying up our meadows; they've taken to draining.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	mortals	mortal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
5	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	drying	dry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	up	up	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	_
8	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	meadows	meadow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	've	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	taken	take	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	parataxis	_	_
14	to	to	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
15	draining	drain	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dry up** *in a quote* | present · progressive | the mortals | our meadows |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Patient meadow=Result |
| 2 | **take** *in a quote* | present · perfect | mortals *= mortal* |  |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **drain** *in a quote* | gerund | mortals *= mortal* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn clear-10.3-1 «NP.Source V»: agent=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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