---
title: The glaciers seemed to spread above them like a continued chain of m… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The glaciers seemed to spread above them like a continued chain of masses of ice, piled up in wild confusion between bare and rugged rocks. Who acts: glaciers. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, II. the Journey to the New Home, with its dependency tree and the 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, II. the Journey to the New Home, sentence 39

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The glaciers seemed to spread above them like a continued chain of masses of ice, piled up in wild confusion between bare and rugged rocks.

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**Who acts:** glaciers · **What happens:** seem, spread, continue, pile up · **To what, where:** masses, wild confusion

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, II. the Journey to the New Home. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (glaciers), 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:pg27200:53:39
# text = The glaciers seemed to spread above them like a continued chain of masses of ice, piled up in wild confusion between bare and rugged rocks.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	glaciers	glacier	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	spread	spread	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	above	above	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	_
8	like	like	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	continued	continue	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	amod	_	_
11	chain	chain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	masses	mass	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	ice	ice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	piled	pile	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	acl	_	_
18	up	up	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	confusion	confusion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
22	between	between	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
23	bare	bare	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	rugged	rugged	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	conj	_	_
26	rocks	rock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | past | the glaciers |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 2 | **spread** | to-infinitive | the glaciers *not said here* |  |  |  |  | above glaciers *= glacier*; like a continued chain of masses of ice | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme above they=Location |
| 3 | **continue** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **pile up** | participle |  | masses of ice *not said here* |  | wild confusion between bare rocks |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme in confusion=Destination |

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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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