---
title: But the sailors could not understand the song, they took it for the… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But the sailors could not understand the song, they took it for the howling of the storm. Who acts: sailors, storm. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/75/64/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [The Little Mermaid, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/75/) / 64

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1, sentence 64

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the sailors could not understand the song, they took it for the howling of the storm.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sailors, storm · **What happens:** not understand, take, howl · **To what, where:** song

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (sailors, storm), 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:pg27200:75:64
# text = But the sailors could not understand the song, they took it for the howling of the storm.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	sailors	sailor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
4	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	howling	howling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	storm	storm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **understand** | could | the sailors | the song |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer song=Stimulus |
| 2 | **take** | past | sailors *= sailor* | song |  |  |  | for the howling of the storm | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent it=Theme for howling=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **howl** |  | the storm |  |  |  |  |  | nom howling «communication intransitive»: of=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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 63](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/75/63/)
- next →: [sentence 65](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/75/65/)
- ↑ back to [The Little Mermaid, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/75/)