---
title: “Only look what is still on the ugly old Christmas tree!” said he, t… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Only look what is still on the ugly old Christmas tree!” said he, trampling on the branches, so that they all cracked beneath his feet. Who acts: Tree, branches. 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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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Fir Tree, sentence 199

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“Only look what is still on the ugly old Christmas tree!” said he, trampling on the branches, so that they all cracked beneath his feet.

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**Who acts:** Tree, branches · **What happens:** look, be, say, trample, crack · **To what, where:** ugly old Christmas tree, branches, feet · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Tree, branches), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg1597:833`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg1597:10:199
# text = “Only look what is still on the ugly old Christmas tree!” said he, trampling on the branches, so that they all cracked beneath his feet.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	_
2	Only	only	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	look	look	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	15	ccomp	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	nsubj	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
6	still	still	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
9	ugly	ugly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
10	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
11	Christmas	Christmas	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	ccomp	_	_
13	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
18	trampling	trample	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
19	on	on	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	branches	branch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
23	so	so	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	_
24	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	fixed	_	_
25	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	nsubj	_	_
26	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	25	det	_	_
27	cracked	crack	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	advcl	_	_
28	beneath	beneath	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	30	nmod:poss	_	_
30	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	obl	_	_
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  | the ugly old Christmas tree | still |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: express* | past | Tree |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **trample** | gerund | Tree *not said here* |  |  | the branches |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **crack** | past | branches *= branch* |  |  | Tree's feet |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme beneath foot=Location |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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