---
title: Then Helga bowed her head thoughtfully and seriously, and looked at… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Then Helga bowed her head thoughtfully and seriously, and looked at the circling ostrich, as with timid fear and simple pleasure it glanced at its own great shadow on the sunlit walls. Who acts: Helga, head. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's D
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 6, sentence 39

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Then Helga bowed her head thoughtfully and seriously, and looked at the circling ostrich, as with timid fear and simple pleasure it glanced at its own great shadow on the sunlit walls.

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**Who acts:** Helga, head · **What happens:** bow, look, pleasure, glance, shadow · **To what, where:** head, sunlit walls

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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 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Helga, head), 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:pg27200:88:39
# text = Then Helga bowed her head thoughtfully and seriously, and looked at the circling ostrich, as with timid fear and simple pleasure it glanced at its own great shadow on the sunlit walls.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	Helga	Helga	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	bowed	bow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	thoughtfully	thoughtfully	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	seriously	seriously	ADV	RB	_	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	circling	circling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	ostrich	ostrich	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
17	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
18	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	timid	timid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	fear	fear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	simple	simple	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	conj	_	_
23	pleasure	pleasure	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	glanced	glance	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	ccomp	_	_
26	at	at	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
27	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	30	nmod:poss	_	_
28	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
29	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	shadow	shadow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	_
31	on	on	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
32	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
33	sunlit	sunlit	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	amod	_	_
34	walls	wall	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bow** | past | Helga | Helga's head |  |  | then | thoughtfully *property* | vn curtsey-40.3.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Topic |
| 2 | **look** | past |  |  |  |  |  | at the circling ostrich | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at ostrich=Theme |
| 3 | **pleasure** | present |  |  |  |  |  | with timid fear | tree rules |
| 4 | **glance** | past | head |  |  |  |  | at head's own great shadow on the sunlit walls | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at shadow=Theme |
| 5 | **shadow** |  | head |  |  | the sunlit walls |  |  | nom shadow «state transitive»: poss=agent on=place |

<!-- .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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