---
title: The materials of which it was built seemed just as soft, and picture… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The materials of which it was built seemed just as soft, and pictured forth cloudy turrets and sail-like terraces, quite transparent, and floating in the thin air. Who acts: materials. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Watchman's Adventures, with its depen
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Watchman's Adventures, sentence 63

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The materials of which it was built seemed just as soft, and pictured forth cloudy turrets and sail-like terraces, quite transparent, and floating in the thin air.

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**Who acts:** materials · **What happens:** build, seem, picture, float · **To what, where:** material, cloudy turrets, thin air

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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 (materials), 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:pg27200:42:63
# text = The materials of which it was built seemed just as soft, and pictured forth cloudy turrets and sail-like terraces, quite transparent, and floating in the thin air.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	materials	material	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	7	obl	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	built	build	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl:relcl	_	_
8	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	just	just	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
10	as	as	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	pictured	picture	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	parataxis	_	_
15	forth	forth	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
16	cloudy	cloudy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	turrets	turret	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
19	sail	sail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	like	like	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	terraces	terrace	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	transparent	transparent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
28	floating	float	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	xcomp	_	_
29	in	in	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
31	thin	thin	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **build** | past · passive |  | material |  |  |  | of the materials | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product |
| 2 | **seem** | past | the materials |  |  |  |  | soft *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 3 | **picture** | participle |  | cloudy turrets and like terraces |  |  |  |  | vn characterize-29.2 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **float** | gerund | the materials *not said here* |  |  | the thin air |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in air=Trajectory |

<!-- .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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