---
title: In a very few seconds the watchman had travelled more than two hundr… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: In a very few seconds the watchman had travelled more than two hundred thousand miles to the moon, which is formed of a lighter material than our earth, and may be said to be as soft as new fallen snow. Who acts: watchman. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Watchman's Adventures, sentence 59

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In a very few seconds the watchman had travelled more than two hundred thousand miles to the moon, which is formed of a lighter material than our earth, and may be said to be as soft as new fallen snow.

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**Who acts:** watchman · **What happens:** travell, form, say, be, fall · **To what, where:** thousand miles, moon · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Watchman's Adventures. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (watchman), 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:pg27200:42:59
# text = In a very few seconds the watchman had travelled more than two hundred thousand miles to the moon, which is formed of a lighter material than our earth, and may be said to be as soft as new fallen snow.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	very	very	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	seconds	second	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	watchman	watchman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
8	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	travelled	travell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
10	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp|ExtPos=ADV	13	advmod	_	_
11	than	than	ADP	IN	_	10	fixed	_	_
12	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	compound	_	_
13	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	compound	_	_
14	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	nummod	_	_
15	miles	mile	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	moon	moon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	22	nsubj:pass	_	_
21	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux:pass	_	_
22	formed	form	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	acl:relcl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	lighter	light	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	26	amod	_	_
26	material	material	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
27	than	than	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	34	cc	_	_
32	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	34	aux	_	_
33	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	34	aux:pass	_	_
34	said	say	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	conj	_	_
35	to	to	PART	TO	_	38	mark	_	_
36	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	38	cop	_	_
37	as	as	ADV	RB	_	38	advmod	_	_
38	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	ccomp	_	_
39	as	as	ADP	IN	_	42	case	_	_
40	new	new	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	42	amod	_	_
41	fallen	fall	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	42	amod	_	_
42	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	38	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
43	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **travell** | past · perfect | the watchman | thousand miles |  |  | second | to the moon | tree rules |
| 2 | **form** | present · passive |  | the moon |  |  |  | of a lighter material than our earth | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | may · passive | the watchman *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S» |
| 4 | **is** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | as new fallen snow; soft *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **fall** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «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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