---
title: Innumerable fishes, great and small, swam past the crystal walls; on… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Innumerable fishes, great and small, swam past the crystal walls; on some of them the scales glowed with a purple brilliancy, and on others they shone like silver and gold. Who acts: Innumerable fishes, walls. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Merma
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 2, sentence 71

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Innumerable fishes, great and small, swam past the crystal walls; on some of them the scales glowed with a purple brilliancy, and on others they shone like silver and gold.

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**Who acts:** Innumerable fishes, walls · **What happens:** swim, glow, shine · **To what, where:** crystal walls, scales, others

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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 (Innumerable fishes, walls), 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:pg27200:76:71
# text = Innumerable fishes, great and small, swam past the crystal walls; on some of them the scales glowed with a purple brilliancy, and on others they shone like silver and gold.
1	Innumerable	innumerable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	fishes	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
8	swam	swim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	past	past	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	crystal	crystal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	walls	wall	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	17	nsubj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	conj	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	scales	scale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	parataxis	_	_
20	glowed	glow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	acl	_	_
21	with	with	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	purple	purple	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	brilliancy	brilliancy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
27	on	on	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	others	other	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	obl	_	_
29	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
30	shone	shine	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
31	like	like	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	silver	silver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	_
33	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	34	cc	_	_
34	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swim** | past | Innumerable fishes |  |  | the crystal walls |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme past wall=Trajectory |
| 2 | **glow** | participle |  | the scales *not said here* |  |  |  | with a purple brilliancy | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location with brilliancy=Theme |
| 3 | **shine** | past | walls *= wall* |  |  | others |  | like silver and gold | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on other=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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