---
title: Then her sisters came up on the waves, and gazed at her mournfully,… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Then her sisters came up on the waves, and gazed at her mournfully, wringing their white hands. 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.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 3, sentence 88

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Then her sisters came up on the waves, and gazed at her mournfully, wringing their white hands.

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**Who acts:** sisters · **What happens:** come up, gaze, wring · **To what, where:** waves, white hands

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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 (sisters), 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:pg27200:77:88
# text = Then her sisters came up on the waves, and gazed at her mournfully, wringing their white hands.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	sisters	sister	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	up	up	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	waves	wave	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	gazed	gaze	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
12	at	at	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	mournfully	mournfully	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	wringing	wring	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come up** | past | mermaid's sisters |  |  | the waves | then |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on wave=Location |
| 2 | **gaze** | past | mermaid's sisters *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at mournfully=Theme |
| 3 | **wring** | gerund | mermaid's sisters *not said here* | sisters's white hands |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hand=Patient |

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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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