---
title: Its wings could sustain it no longer, and gently and slowly it glide… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Its wings could sustain it no longer, and gently and slowly it glided down upon the soft waving blades of grass, nodded its little head as well as it could nod, and slept peacefully and sweetly. Who acts: wings, sun. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Last 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Last Dream of the Old Oak, sentence 21

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Its wings could sustain it no longer, and gently and slowly it glided down upon the soft waving blades of grass, nodded its little head as well as it could nod, and slept peacefully and sweetly.

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**Who acts:** wings, sun · **What happens:** sustain, glide down, nod, sleep · **To what, where:** sun, soft waving blades, little head

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Last Dream of the Old Oak. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wings, sun), 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:pg27200:69:21
# text = Its wings could sustain it no longer, and gently and slowly it glided down upon the soft waving blades of grass, nodded its little head as well as it could nod, and slept peacefully and sweetly.
1	Its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	sustain	sustain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	no	no	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	longer	long	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	gently	gently	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	slowly	slowly	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	glided	glide	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
15	down	down	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
16	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
18	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
19	waving	waving	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	_
20	blades	blade	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
24	nodded	nod	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
25	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
26	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	_
28	as	as	ADV	RB	ExtPos=ADV	24	advmod	_	_
29	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	28	fixed	_	_
30	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	33	mark	_	_
31	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	33	nsubj	_	_
32	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	33	aux	_	_
33	nod	nod	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	36	punct	_	_
35	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	36	cc	_	_
36	slept	sleep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
37	peacefully	peacefully	ADV	RB	_	36	advmod	_	_
38	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	39	cc	_	_
39	sweetly	sweetly	ADV	RB	_	37	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
40	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sustain** | could | sun's wings | sun |  |  |  | gently, long *property* | vn sustain-55.6 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 2 | **glide down** | past | sun |  |  | the soft waving blades of grass |  | down, slowly *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon blade=Trajectory |
| 3 | **nod** | past | sun *not said here* | sun's little head |  |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 4 | **nod** | could | sun |  |  |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **sleep** | past | sun *not said here* |  |  |  |  | peacefully *property* | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

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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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