---
title: There sat the sea witch, allowing a toad to eat from her mouth, just… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There sat the sea witch, allowing a toad to eat from her mouth, just as people sometimes feed a canary with a piece of sugar. Who acts: people. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every c
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, sentence 3

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There sat the sea witch, allowing a toad to eat from her mouth, just as people sometimes feed a canary with a piece of sugar.

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**Who acts:** people · **What happens:** sit, allow, eat, feed · **To what, where:** sea witch, toad, mouth, canary

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (people), 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:pg27200:77:3
# text = There sat the sea witch, allowing a toad to eat from her mouth, just as people sometimes feed a canary with a piece of sugar.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	allowing	allow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	toad	toad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	_
12	from	from	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	just	just	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
17	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nsubj	_	_
19	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	20	advmod	_	_
20	feed	feed	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	canary	canary	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	with	with	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	sugar	sugar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past |  | the sea witch |  | there |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location witch=Theme |
| 2 | **allow** | gerund |  |  | a toad |  |  |  | vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent toad=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive |  |  |  | toad's mouth |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V PP.source»: agent=Agent from mouth=Source |
| 4 | **feed** | present | people | a canary |  |  |  | with a piece of sugar; sometimes *property* | vn feeding-39.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent canary=Recipient |

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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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