---
title: These presents flew like pebbles across the sea-water. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: These presents flew like pebbles across the sea-water. Who acts: presents. 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 196

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These presents flew like pebbles across the sea-water.

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**Who acts:** presents · **What happens:** fly · **To what, where:** sea water

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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 (presents), 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:pg27200:211:196
# text = These presents flew like pebbles across the sea-water.
1	These	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	2	det	_	_
2	presents	present	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	like	like	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	pebbles	pebble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
6	across	across	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
8	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | past | this presents |  |  | the sea water |  | like pebbles | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme across water=Trajectory |

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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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