---
title: The church bells were ringing, as if to welcome him to his home with… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The church bells were ringing, as if to welcome him to his home with their sweet tones. Who acts: church bells, bells. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IV. Babette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, IV. Babette, sentence 98

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The church bells were ringing, as if to welcome him to his home with their sweet tones.

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**Who acts:** church bells, bells · **What happens:** ring, welcome, intonate · **To what, where:** house

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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 (church bells, bells), 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:pg27200:55:98
# text = The church bells were ringing, as if to welcome him to his home with their sweet tones.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	church	church	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	bells	bell	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	ringing	ring	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	welcome	welcome	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	home	home	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
17	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	tones	tone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ring** | past · progressive | the church bells |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **welcome** *a condition, not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the church bells *not said here* | house |  |  |  | to house's home; with bells's sweet tones | vn admit-64.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 3 | **intonate** |  | bells *= bell* |  |  |  |  |  | nom tone «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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