---
title: The Fir Tree stood quite still and absorbed in thought; the birds in… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The Fir Tree stood quite still and absorbed in thought; the birds in the wood had never related the like of this. Who acts: Fir Tree. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Fir Tree, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/10/117/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Fir Tree, sentence 117

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The Fir Tree stood quite still and absorbed in thought; the birds in the wood had never related the like of this.

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**Who acts:** Fir Tree · **What happens:** stand, absorb, not relate · **To what, where:** thought, birds

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Fir Tree. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fir Tree), 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:pg1597:10:117
# text = The Fir Tree stood quite still and absorbed in thought; the birds in the wood had never related the like of this.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	Fir	Fir	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	Tree	Tree	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	still	still	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	absorbed	absorb	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	thought	thought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
17	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	related	relate	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
21	like	like	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | the Fir Tree |  |  |  | still |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **absorb** | participle | the Fir Tree *not said here* |  |  | thought |  |  | vn absorb-39.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Goal |
| 3 | **not** **relate** | past · perfect · passive |  | the birds in the wood |  |  |  |  | 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:** «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 1597 (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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