---
title: Was he rising higher, or sinking lower and lower into the deep, dead… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Was he rising higher, or sinking lower and lower into the deep, deadly abyss? Who acts: Maiden. 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 51

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Was he rising higher, or sinking lower and lower into the deep, deadly abyss?

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**Who acts:** Maiden · **What happens:** rise, sink · **To what, where:** deep deadly abyss

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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 (Maiden), 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:pg27200:63:51
# text = Was he rising higher, or sinking lower and lower into the deep, deadly abyss?
1	Was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	rising	rise	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	higher	high	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	sinking	sink	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	_
8	lower	low	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	7	xcomp	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	lower	low	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	8	conj	_	_
11	into	into	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
13	deep	deep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
15	deadly	deadly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	abyss	abyss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **rise** | past · progressive | Maiden |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **sink** | gerund | Maiden *not said here* |  |  | the deep deadly abyss |  | low *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

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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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