---
title: The strangers stepped down, leaving the starlit air and the cheerful… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The strangers stepped down, leaving the starlit air and the cheerful life of the upper world behind them. Who acts: strangers. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Dryad, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Dryad, part 3, sentence 4

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The strangers stepped down, leaving the starlit air and the cheerful life of the upper world behind them.

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**Who acts:** strangers · **What happens:** step down, leave · **To what, where:** starlit air

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Dryad, 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 (strangers), 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:pg27200:26:4
# text = The strangers stepped down, leaving the starlit air and the cheerful life of the upper world behind them.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	strangers	stranger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stepped	step	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	down	down	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	leaving	leave	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	starlit	starlit	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	cheerful	cheerful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	upper	upper	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
18	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **step down** | past | the strangers |  |  |  |  |  | vn resign-10.11 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **leave** | gerund | the strangers *not said here* | the starlit air and the cheerful life of the upper world behind strangers |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent air=Theme |

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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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