---
title: The winter was very hard; the ponds were covered with ice, and there… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The winter was very hard; the ponds were covered with ice, and there was very little food for either the beasts of the field or the birds of the air. Who acts: winter, little food. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf, with its depen
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf, sentence 90

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The winter was very hard; the ponds were covered with ice, and there was very little food for either the beasts of the field or the birds of the air.

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**Who acts:** winter, little food · **What happens:** be, cover · **To what, where:** ponds

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (winter, little food), 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:pg27200:37:90
# text = The winter was very hard; the ponds were covered with ice, and there was very little food for either the beasts of the field or the birds of the air.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	winter	winter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	ponds	pond	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	covered	cover	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	ice	ice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	16	expl	_	_
16	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
17	very	very	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
20	for	for	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	either	either	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc:preconj	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	beasts	beast	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	_
24	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	field	field	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	_
27	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	conj	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the winter |  |  |  |  | hard *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **cover** | past · passive |  | the ponds |  |  |  | with ice | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: subject=Destination with ice=Theme |
| 3 | **be** | past | little food for the beasts of the field or the birds of the air |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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