---
title: She circled round the tower; the workmen thought it was a butterfly… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: She circled round the tower; the workmen thought it was a butterfly that had come too early, and that now sank down dying. Who acts: partner, workmen, tower, butterfly. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Dryad, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragm
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Dryad, part 3, sentence 79

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She circled round the tower; the workmen thought it was a butterfly that had come too early, and that now sank down dying.

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**Who acts:** partner, workmen, tower, butterfly, that · **What happens:** circle, think, be, come, sink down, die · **To what, where:** butterfly · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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, workmen, tower, butterfly), 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:pg27200:26:79
# text = She circled round the tower; the workmen thought it was a butterfly that had come too early, and that now sank down dying.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	circled	circle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	round	round	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	tower	tower	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	workmen	workman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	butterfly	butterfly	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	ccomp	_	_
14	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	come	come	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	acl:relcl	_	_
17	too	too	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	early	early	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
21	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	23	nsubj	_	_
22	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	23	advmod	_	_
23	sank	sink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
24	down	down	ADP	RP	_	23	compound:prt	_	_
25	dying	die	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	23	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **circle** | past | partner |  |  |  |  | round the tower | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the workmen |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | past | tower | a butterfly |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **come** | past · perfect | a butterfly |  |  |  |  | early *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **sink down** | past | that |  |  |  | now |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **die** | gerund | that *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |

<!-- .note -->
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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