---
title: Over everything reigned a stillness, not of sleep or of death, but a… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Over everything reigned a stillness, not of sleep or of death, but as if Nature were holding her breath, that her image might be photographed on the blue vault of heaven. Who acts: Nature. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IV. Babette, with its dependency tree
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, IV. Babette, sentence 48

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Over everything reigned a stillness, not of sleep or of death, but as if Nature were holding her breath, that her image might be photographed on the blue vault of heaven.

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**Who acts:** Nature · **What happens:** reign, hold, photograph, image · **To what, where:** stillness, everything, breath, image, blue vault

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IV. Babette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nature), 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:pg27200:55:48
# text = Over everything reigned a stillness, not of sleep or of death, but as if Nature were holding her breath, that her image might be photographed on the blue vault of heaven.
1	Over	over	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	everything	everything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	3	obl	_	_
3	reigned	reign	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	stillness	stillness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	sleep	sleep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
10	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	as	as	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
17	Nature	Nature	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
18	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
20	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
23	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	28	mark	_	_
24	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	image	image	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nsubj:pass	_	_
26	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
27	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	aux:pass	_	_
28	photographed	photograph	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
29	on	on	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
31	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	vault	vault	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	_
33	of	of	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
34	heaven	heaven	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reign** | past |  | a stillness |  | everything |  | of sleep or death | tree rules |
| 2 | **hold** | past · progressive |  | Nature's breath |  |  |  | as Nature | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent breath=Theme |
| 3 | **photograph** | might · passive |  | Nature's image |  | the blue vault of heaven |  |  | vn transcribe-25.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme on vault=Destination |
| 4 | **image** |  | Nature |  |  |  |  |  | nom image «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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