Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1, sentence 26

The shadow had a violet tint, and waved to and fro like the branches; it seemed as if the crown of the tree and the root were at play, and trying to kiss each other.

Who acts: shadow, it, crown · What happens: have, wave, fro, seem, be, try · To what, where: violet tint, play, each, tree

This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (shadow, it, crown), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 shadow	det
2	shadow	shadow	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 had	nsubj
3	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 tint	det
5	violet	violet	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 tint	amod
6	tint	tint	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 had	obj
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 waved	punct
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 waved	cc
9	waved	wave	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 had	conj
10	to	to	ADP	_	9 waved	obl
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 fro	cc
12	fro	fro	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 waved	conj
13	like	like	ADP	_	15 branches	case
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 branches	det
15	branches	branch	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 fro	obl
16	;	;	PUNCT	_	18 seemed	punct
17	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 seemed	nsubj
18	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 had	parataxis
19	as	as	SCONJ	_	31 play	mark
20	if	if	SCONJ	_	31 play	mark
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 crown	det
22	crown	crown	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 play	nsubj
23	of	of	ADP	_	25 tree	case
24	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	25 tree	det
25	tree	tree	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 crown	nmod
26	and	and	CCONJ	_	28 root	cc
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	28 root	det
28	root	root	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 tree	conj
29	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	31 play	cop
30	at	at	ADP	_	31 play	case
31	play	play	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 seemed	xcomp
32	,	,	PUNCT	_	34 trying	punct
33	and	and	CCONJ	_	34 trying	cc
34	trying	try	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	18 seemed	xcomp
35	to	to	PART	_	36 kiss	mark
36	kiss	kiss	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	34 trying	xcomp
37	each	each	DET	ExtPos=PRON PronType=Rcp	36 kiss	obj
38	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	37 each	fixed
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 had	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	have	past	the shadow	a violet tint			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tint=Patient
2	wave	past	the shadow not said here				vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	fro	infinitive	the shadow not said here			like the branches	tree rules
4	seem	past	it				vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute
5	is a condition, not said to happen	past	the crown of the tree and the root		play		tree rules
6	try	gerund					vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
7	kiss not said to happen	to-infinitive		each			vn marry-36.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent each=Co-Agent
8	crown			the tree and the root			nom crown «communication transitive»: of=patient

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.

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.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/75/26/