---
title: Life is beginning and swells like a cloud; nobody knows whither it i… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Life is beginning and swells like a cloud; nobody knows whither it is hastening." Who acts: Life, nobody. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Dryad, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Dryad, part 1, sentence 137

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Life is beginning and swells like a cloud; nobody knows whither it is hastening."

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**Who acts:** Life, nobody · **What happens:** begin, swell, know, hasten

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Dryad, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Life, nobody), 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:pg27200:24:137
# text = Life is beginning and swells like a cloud; nobody knows whither it is hastening."
1	Life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	beginning	begin	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	swells	swell	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	like	like	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	cloud	cloud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
10	nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	11	nsubj	_	_
11	knows	know	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
12	whither	whither	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	hastening	hasten	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | present · progressive | Life |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **swell** | present | Life *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like a cloud | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **know** | present | nobody |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **hasten** | present · progressive | life |  |  |  |  | whither *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

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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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