---
title: She did not wait long before she saw a young girl approach the spot… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: She did not wait long before she saw a young girl approach the spot where he lay. Who acts: face, young girl, sea. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 2, sentence 24

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She did not wait long before she saw a young girl approach the spot where he lay.

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**Who acts:** face, young girl, sea · **What happens:** not wait, see, approach, lie · **To what, where:** young girl, spot

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (face, young girl, sea), 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:pg27200:76:24
# text = She did not wait long before she saw a young girl approach the spot where he lay.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	wait	wait	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
6	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
12	approach	approach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	spot	spot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	17	advmod	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	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 | **not** **wait** | past · do-support | face |  |  |  |  | long *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | past | face | a young girl |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **approach** | infinitive | a young girl *not said here* | the spot |  |  |  |  | vn confront-98 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent spot=Theme |
| 4 | **lie** | past | sea |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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