---
title: His gun lay near him in the snow; he took it up and tried to dischar… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: His gun lay near him in the snow; he took it up and tried to discharge it, but it missed fire. Who acts: gun, ring. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/63/59/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [XII. Evil Powers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/63/) / 59

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, XII. Evil Powers, sentence 59

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
His gun lay near him in the snow; he took it up and tried to discharge it, but it missed fire.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** gun, ring · **What happens:** lie, take up, try, discharge, miss · **To what, where:** snow, ring, fire

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (gun, ring), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:63:59
# text = His gun lay near him in the snow; he took it up and tried to discharge it, but it missed fire.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	gun	gun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	near	near	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	up	up	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	discharge	discharge	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	missed	miss	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
23	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past | Rudy's gun |  |  | the snow |  | near Rudy | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent near he=Location |
| 2 | **take up** | past | gun | ring |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **try** | past | gun *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **discharge** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | gun *not said here* | ring |  |  |  |  | vn banish-10.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 5 | **miss** | past | ring | fire |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer fire=Stimulus |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 58](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/63/58/)
- next →: [sentence 60](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/63/60/)
- ↑ back to [XII. Evil Powers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/63/)