---
title: She called the ugly water-snakes her little chickens, and allowed th… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: She called the ugly water-snakes her little chickens, and allowed them to crawl all over her bosom. Who acts: toad, snakes. 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 clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, sentence 4

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She called the ugly water-snakes her little chickens, and allowed them to crawl all over her bosom.

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**Who acts:** toad, snakes · **What happens:** call, allow, crawl, bosom · **To what, where:** ugly water snakes, snakes, bosom · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (toad, snakes), 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:pg27200:77:4
# text = She called the ugly water-snakes her little chickens, and allowed them to crawl all over her bosom.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
4	ugly	ugly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
5	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	snakes	snake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
8	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	chickens	chicken	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	allowed	allow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
14	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	crawl	crawl	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
17	all	all	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
18	over	over	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	bosom	bosom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **call** | past | toad |  | the ugly water snakes |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent snake=Recipient |
| 2 | **allow** | past | toad *not said here* | snakes *= snake* |  |  |  |  | vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V NP S»: agent=Causer they=Beneficiary clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **crawl** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | snakes *= snake* *not said here* | toad's bosom |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location bosom=Theme |
| 4 | **bosom** |  | toad |  |  |  |  |  | nom bosom «state transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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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