---
title: The roof is formed of shells, that open and close as the water flows… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The roof is formed of shells, that open and close as the water flows over them. Who acts: water. 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 8

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The roof is formed of shells, that open and close as the water flows over them.

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**Who acts:** water · **What happens:** form, flow · **To what, where:** roof

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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 (water), 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:pg27200:75:8
# text = The roof is formed of shells, that open and close as the water flows over them.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	roof	roof	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	formed	form	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	shells	shell	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	nsubj	_	_
9	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	parataxis	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	close	close	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	flows	flow	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
16	over	over	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **form** | present · passive |  | the roof |  |  |  | of shells | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **flow** | present | the water |  |  |  |  | over shells *= shell* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over they=Location |

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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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