---
title: Then all became still on board the ship; the helmsman, alone awake,… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Then all became still on board the ship; the helmsman, alone awake, stood at the helm. Who acts: all, helmsman. 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 21

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Then all became still on board the ship; the helmsman, alone awake, stood at the helm.

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**Who acts:** all, helmsman · **What happens:** become, stand · **To what, where:** ship, helm

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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 (all, helmsman), 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:pg27200:78:21
# text = Then all became still on board the ship; the helmsman, alone awake, stood at the helm.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	3	nsubj	_	_
3	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	still	still	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	board	board	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	ship	ship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	helmsman	helmsman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	alone	alone	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	awake	awake	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	helm	helm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **become** | past | all |  |  | the ship | then; still |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **stand** | past | the helmsman |  |  | the helm |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at helm=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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