---
title: Let but a snow-ball roll, and you and your houses and your towns are… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Let but a snow-ball roll, and you and your houses and your towns are crushed and swept away." Who acts: you. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IX. the Ice Maiden, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, IX. the Ice Maiden, sentence 4

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Let but a snow-ball roll, and you and your houses and your towns are crushed and swept away."

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** let, crush, sweep away · **To what, where:** you

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IX. the Ice Maiden. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg27200:60:4
# text = Let but a snow-ball roll, and you and your houses and your towns are crushed and swept away."
1	Let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
4	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	roll	roll	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	houses	house	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	towns	town	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	_
17	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux:pass	_	_
18	crushed	crush	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	1	parataxis	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	swept	sweep	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	conj	_	_
21	away	away	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **crush** | present · passive |  | you |  |  |  |  | vn carve-21.2-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 3 | **sweep away** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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