---
title: It was bitterly cold, the sky glittered with stars, and not a breeze… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It was bitterly cold, the sky glittered with stars, and not a breeze stirred. " Who acts: It. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Mail-coach Passengers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Mail-coach Passengers, sentence 1

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It was bitterly cold, the sky glittered with stars, and not a breeze stirred. "

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**Who acts:** It · **What happens:** be, glitter, stir · **To what, where:** sky, breeze

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Mail-coach Passengers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It), 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:pg27200:82:1
# text = It was bitterly cold, the sky glittered with stars, and not a breeze stirred. "
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	bitterly	bitterly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	cold	cold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	sky	sky	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	glittered	glitter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	acl	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	stars	star	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	breeze	breeze	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
16	stirred	stir	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | It |  |  |  |  | the sky *obl*; bitterly, cold *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **glitter** | participle |  | the sky *not said here* |  |  |  | with stars | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location with star=Theme |
| 3 | **stir** | participle · passive |  | a breeze |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |

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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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