---
title: Was it the spirit of life or of death that overpowered him? — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Was it the spirit of life or of death that overpowered him? Who acts: effect, death. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, XII. Evil Powers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, XII. Evil Powers, sentence 50

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Was it the spirit of life or of death that overpowered him?

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**Who acts:** effect, death · **What happens:** be, overpower · **To what, where:** spirit, Maiden

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, XII. Evil Powers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (effect, death), 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:pg27200:63:50
# text = Was it the spirit of life or of death that overpowered him?
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	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	spirit	spirit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
7	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
10	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	overpowered	overpower	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	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 | effect | the spirit or death |  |  |  | of life | tree rules |
| 2 | **overpower** | past | death | Maiden |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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