---
title: They were of the most singular shapes, and glittered like diamonds. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They were of the most singular shapes, and glittered like diamonds. Who acts: icebergs. 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 clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1, sentence 56

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They were of the most singular shapes, and glittered like diamonds.

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**Who acts:** icebergs · **What happens:** be, glitter · **To what, where:** singular shapes

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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 (icebergs), 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:pg27200:75:56
# text = They were of the most singular shapes, and glittered like diamonds.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	6	advmod	_	_
6	singular	singular	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	shapes	shape	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	glittered	glitter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	acl	_	_
11	like	like	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	diamonds	diamond	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | icebergs *= iceberg* |  |  |  |  | of the singular shapes | tree rules |
| 2 | **glitter** | participle |  | the singular shapes *not said here* |  |  |  | like diamonds | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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