---
title: Feathers of plucked birds, as they call the snow, flew about in thic… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Feathers of plucked birds, as they call the snow, flew about in thick showers, and winter was coming. Who acts: Feathers, winter. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 2, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Feathers of plucked birds, as they call the snow, flew about in thick showers, and winter was coming.

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**Who acts:** Feathers, winter · **What happens:** pluck, call, fly, come · **To what, where:** snow · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Feathers, winter), 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:pg27200:84:39
# text = Feathers of plucked birds, as they call the snow, flew about in thick showers, and winter was coming.
1	Feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
2	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	plucked	pluck	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	amod	_	_
4	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	call	call	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
13	about	about	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	showers	shower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
19	winter	winter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	coming	come	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pluck** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V PP-Conative»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **call** *speech: assert* | present | Feathers of plucked birds | the snow |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent snow=Recipient |
| 3 | **fly** | past |  |  |  |  |  | about thick showers | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme about shower=Location |
| 4 | **come** | past · progressive | winter |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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.

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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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