---
title: Once during the night her sisters came up arm-in-arm, singing sorrow… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Once during the night her sisters came up arm-in-arm, singing sorrowfully, as they floated on the water. Who acts: sisters. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/58/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [The Little Mermaid, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/) / 58

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, sentence 58

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Once during the night her sisters came up arm-in-arm, singing sorrowfully, as they floated on the water.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sisters · **What happens:** come up, sing, float · **To what, where:** arm, water

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (sisters), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:77:58
# text = Once during the night her sisters came up arm-in-arm, singing sorrowfully, as they floated on the water.
1	Once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	7	advmod	_	_
2	during	during	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	_
5	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	sisters	sister	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
7	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	up	up	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	_
9	arm	arm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	arm	arm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
16	sorrowfully	sorrowfully	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	floated	float	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come up** | past | mermaid's sisters | arm and arm |  |  |  | once *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | mermaid's sisters *not said here* |  |  |  |  | sorrowfully *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **float** | past | sisters *= sister* |  |  | the water |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on water=Trajectory |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 57](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/57/)
- next →: [sentence 59](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/59/)
- ↑ back to [The Little Mermaid, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/77/)