---
title: She could see the moon and stars shining faintly; but through the wa… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: She could see the moon and stars shining faintly; but through the water they looked larger than they do to our eyes. Who acts: turn, stars, moon. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1, sentence 36

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She could see the moon and stars shining faintly; but through the water they looked larger than they do to our eyes.

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**Who acts:** turn, stars, moon · **What happens:** see, shine, look, do · **To what, where:** moon

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (turn, stars, moon), 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:pg27200:75:36
# text = She could see the moon and stars shining faintly; but through the water they looked larger than they do to our eyes.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	moon	moon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	stars	star	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
8	shining	shine	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	acl	_	_
9	faintly	faintly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	through	through	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
17	larger	large	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	16	xcomp	_	_
18	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | could | turn | the moon and stars |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer moon=Stimulus |
| 2 | **shine** | gerund | stars *not said here* |  |  |  |  | faintly *property* | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **look** | past | moon |  |  |  |  | through the water; large *property* | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent through water=Theme |
| 4 | **do** | present | moon |  |  |  |  | to our eyes | vn act-114-1 «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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