---
title: The branches were long slimy arms, with fingers like flexible worms,… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The branches were long slimy arms, with fingers like flexible worms, moving limb after limb from the root to the top. Who acts: branches, fingers. 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 ever
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/76/83/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 2, sentence 83

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The branches were long slimy arms, with fingers like flexible worms, moving limb after limb from the root to the top.

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**Who acts:** branches, fingers · **What happens:** be, move · **To what, where:** long slimy arms, limb, root

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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 (branches, fingers), 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:pg27200:76:83
# text = The branches were long slimy arms, with fingers like flexible worms, moving limb after limb from the root to the top.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
5	slimy	slimy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	arms	arm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	fingers	finger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	_
10	like	like	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	flexible	flexible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	worms	worm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	moving	move	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	acl	_	_
15	limb	limb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
16	after	after	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	limb	limb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	from	from	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	root	root	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | the branches | long slimy arms and fingers like flexible worms |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **move** | gerund | fingers like flexible worms *not said here* | limb |  | the root to the top | after limb |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent limb=Theme from root=Trajectory |

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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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