---
title: On all the ships the sails were reefed with fear and trembling, whil… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: On all the ships the sails were reefed with fear and trembling, while she sat calmly on the floating iceberg, watching the blue lightning, as it darted its forked flashes into the sea. Who acts: light, lightning. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Me
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/75/59/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1, sentence 59

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On all the ships the sails were reefed with fear and trembling, while she sat calmly on the floating iceberg, watching the blue lightning, as it darted its forked flashes into the sea.

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**Who acts:** light, lightning · **What happens:** reef, tremble, sit, float, watch, dart · **To what, where:** sails, ships, floating iceberg, blue lightning, forked flashes, sea

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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 (light, lightning), 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:pg27200:75:59
# text = On all the ships the sails were reefed with fear and trembling, while she sat calmly on the floating iceberg, watching the blue lightning, as it darted its forked flashes into the sea.
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	4	det:predet	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	ships	ship	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	sails	sail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj:pass	_	_
7	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	reefed	reef	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	fear	fear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	trembling	tremble	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
17	calmly	calmly	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
18	on	on	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	floating	float	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	21	amod	_	_
21	iceberg	iceberg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
23	watching	watch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	lightning	lightning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
28	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	30	mark	_	_
29	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
30	darted	dart	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
31	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	33	nmod:poss	_	_
32	forked	fork	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	33	amod	_	_
33	flashes	flash	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	obj	_	_
34	into	into	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
35	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reef** | past · passive |  | the sails |  | all ships |  | with fear | tree rules |
| 2 | **tremble** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **sit** | past | light |  |  | the floating iceberg |  | calmly *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on iceberg=Location |
| 4 | **float** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **watch** | gerund | light *not said here* | the blue lightning |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lightning=Theme |
| 6 | **dart** | past | lightning | lightning's forked flashes |  | the sea |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location flash=Theme |
| 7 | **fork** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn pocket-9.10 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 8 | **flash** |  | lightning |  |  |  |  |  | nom flash «event intransitive»: poss=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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