---
title: When it grew dark a number of colored lamps were lit, and the sailor… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: When it grew dark a number of colored lamps were lit, and the sailors danced merrily on the deck. Who acts: ship, sailors. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 4, sentence 13

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When it grew dark a number of colored lamps were lit, and the sailors danced merrily on the deck.

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**Who acts:** ship, sailors · **What happens:** grow, color, lit, dance · **To what, where:** number, deck

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ship, sailors), 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:pg27200:78:13
# text = When it grew dark a number of colored lamps were lit, and the sailors danced merrily on the deck.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
4	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	number	number	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	colored	color	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	amod	_	_
9	lamps	lamp	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	lit	lit	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	sailors	sailor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
16	danced	dance	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	merrily	merrily	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
18	on	on	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	deck	deck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grow** | past | ship | a number |  |  |  | dark *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location number=Theme |
| 2 | **color** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn coloring-24 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **lit** | past · passive |  | a number *not said here* |  |  |  | of colored lamps | tree rules |
| 4 | **dance** | past | the sailors |  |  | the deck |  | merrily *property* | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on deck=Location |

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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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