---
title: Before her she saw a flame in the air, a flashing light high up on a… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Before her she saw a flame in the air, a flashing light high up on a tower. Who acts: partner. 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 76

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Before her she saw a flame in the air, a flashing light high up on a tower.

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**Who acts:** partner · **What happens:** see, flash · **To what, where:** flame, 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 (partner), 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:pg27200:26:76
# text = Before her she saw a flame in the air, a flashing light high up on a tower.
1	Before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	flame	flame	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	flashing	flash	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	amod	_	_
13	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
14	high	high	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	15	advmod	_	_
15	up	up	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	tower	tower	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | partner | a flame |  | the air |  | a flashing light on a tower *obl* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer flame=Stimulus |
| 2 | **flash** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=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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