---
title: Was it a waterspout, or a heavy sea rolling suddenly upon them? — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Was it a waterspout, or a heavy sea rolling suddenly upon them? Who acts: boat, heavy sea. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Anne Lisbeth, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Anne Lisbeth, sentence 34

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Was it a waterspout, or a heavy sea rolling suddenly upon them?

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**Who acts:** boat, heavy sea · **What happens:** be, roll · **To what, where:** waterspout

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Anne Lisbeth. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boat, heavy sea), 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:pg27200:5:34
# text = Was it a waterspout, or a heavy sea rolling suddenly upon them?
1	Was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	waterspout	waterspout	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	heavy	heavy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	appos	_	_
10	rolling	roll	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	acl	_	_
11	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | boat | a waterspout |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **roll** | gerund | a heavy sea *not said here* |  |  |  |  | upon hands *= hand*; suddenly *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon they=Trajectory |

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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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