---
title: On a blade of grass, that fluttered in the air like a long, green ri… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: On a blade of grass, that fluttered in the air like a long, green ribbon, sat a grasshopper, cleaning his wings with his legs. Who acts: grass. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Last Dream of the Old Oak, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ever
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Last Dream of the Old Oak, sentence 73

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
On a blade of grass, that fluttered in the air like a long, green ribbon, sat a grasshopper, cleaning his wings with his legs.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** grass · **What happens:** flutter, sit, clean · **To what, where:** air, grasshopper, blade, wings

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (grass), 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:pg27200:69:73
# text = On a blade of grass, that fluttered in the air like a long, green ribbon, sat a grasshopper, cleaning his wings with his legs.
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	blade	blade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
8	fluttered	flutter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	like	like	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
14	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
16	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	ribbon	ribbon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
19	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	grasshopper	grasshopper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
23	cleaning	clean	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	19	advcl	_	_
24	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	_
26	with	with	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
28	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **flutter** | past | grass |  |  | the air |  | like a long green ribbon | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in air=Location |
| 2 | **sit** | past |  | a grasshopper |  | a blade of grass |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent grasshopper=Theme on blade=Location |
| 3 | **clean** | gerund |  | grasshopper's wings |  |  |  | with grasshopper's legs | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent wing=Patient with leg=Instrument |

<!-- .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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