---
title: Early in the spring, when the storks were again about to journey nor… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Early in the spring, when the storks were again about to journey northward, beautiful Helga took off her golden bracelets, scratched her name on them, and beckoned to the stork-father. Who acts: storks, Helga. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Marsh King's
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/88/41/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Marsh King's Daughter, part 6, sentence 41

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Early in the spring, when the storks were again about to journey northward, beautiful Helga took off her golden bracelets, scratched her name on them, and beckoned to the stork-father.

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**Who acts:** storks, Helga · **What happens:** be, take off, scratch, beckon, name · **To what, where:** journey, golden bracelets, name, stork father

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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 (storks, Helga), 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:pg27200:88:41
# text = Early in the spring, when the storks were again about to journey northward, beautiful Helga took off her golden bracelets, scratched her name on them, and beckoned to the stork-father.
1	Early	early	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	18	advmod	_	_
2	in	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	spring	spring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
6	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	storks	stork	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
10	again	again	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	about	about	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	journey	journey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
14	northward	northward	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
16	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	Helga	Helga	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
18	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	off	off	ADP	RP	_	18	compound:prt	_	_
20	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
21	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	bracelets	bracelet	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
24	scratched	scratch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	conj	_	_
25	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	_
27	on	on	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
31	beckoned	beckon	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	conj	_	_
32	to	to	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
34	stork	stork	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	34	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | the storks | journey |  |  |  | beautiful Helga *nmod*; about *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **take off** | past |  | Helga's golden bracelets |  |  | spring | early *property* | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bracelet=Theme |
| 3 | **scratch** | past |  | Helga's name |  |  |  | on bracelets *= bracelet* | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent name=Theme on they=Destination |
| 4 | **beckon** | participle |  |  | the stork father |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent to father=Recipient |
| 5 | **name** |  | Helga |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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