---
title: Whenever the sun shone, we felt his warm rays, and the little birds… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Whenever the sun shone, we felt his warm rays, and the little birds would relate stories to us as they sung. Who acts: sun, we, little birds, birds. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Flying Trunk, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Flying Trunk, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Whenever the sun shone, we felt his warm rays, and the little birds would relate stories to us as they sung.

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**Who acts:** sun, we, little birds, birds · **What happens:** shine, feel, relate, sung, ray · **To what, where:** warm rays, stories, us

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Flying Trunk. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sun, we, little birds, birds), 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:pg27200:35:39
# text = Whenever the sun shone, we felt his warm rays, and the little birds would relate stories to us as they sung.
1	Whenever	whenever	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	shone	shine	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	warm	warm	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	rays	ray	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
16	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	relate	relate	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
18	stories	story	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	_
21	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
22	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	sung	sung	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shine** | past | the sun |  |  |  |  | whenever *property* | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **feel** | past | we | sun's warm rays |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ray=Theme |
| 3 | **relate** | would | the little birds | stories | us |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent story=Topic to we=Recipient |
| 4 | **sung** | present | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **ray** |  | sun |  |  |  |  |  | nom ray «phenomenon transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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