---
title: The curtain caught fire, and the flames played about her face; and I… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The curtain caught fire, and the flames played about her face; and I saw that she was dead. Who acts: curtain, flames, I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Third Evening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Third Evening, sentence 20

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The curtain caught fire, and the flames played about her face; and I saw that she was dead.

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**Who acts:** curtain, flames, I · **What happens:** catch, play, see, be · **To what, where:** fire

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Third Evening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (curtain, flames, I), 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:pg27200:94:20
# text = The curtain caught fire, and the flames played about her face; and I saw that she was dead.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	curtain	curtain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	flames	flame	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	about	about	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
17	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
20	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **catch** | past | the curtain | fire |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fire=Theme |
| 2 | **play** | past | the flames |  |  |  |  | about curtain's face | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **see** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **is** | past | curtain |  |  |  |  | dead *property* | tree rules |

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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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