---
title: They asked for the most delicate silk and the purest gold thread; pu… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They asked for the most delicate silk and the purest gold thread; put both into their own knapsacks; and then continued their pretended work at the empty looms until late at night. Who acts: weavers, empty. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Emperor's New Clothes, with its
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Emperor's New Clothes, sentence 12

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They asked for the most delicate silk and the purest gold thread; put both into their own knapsacks; and then continued their pretended work at the empty looms until late at night.

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**Who acts:** weavers, empty · **What happens:** ask, put, continue, pretend, loom, work · **To what, where:** both, own knapsacks, pretended work

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Emperor's New Clothes. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (weavers, empty), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg1597:2:12
# text = They asked for the most delicate silk and the purest gold thread; put both into their own knapsacks; and then continued their pretended work at the empty looms until late at night.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	6	advmod	_	_
6	delicate	delicate	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	silk	silk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	purest	pure	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	12	amod	_	_
11	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	thread	thread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
14	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
15	both	both	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	14	obj	_	_
16	into	into	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	knapsacks	knapsack	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
22	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	23	advmod	_	_
23	continued	continue	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
24	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
25	pretended	pretend	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	26	amod	_	_
26	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
27	at	at	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	nsubj	_	_
30	looms	loom	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	conj	_	_
31	until	until	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
32	late	late	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	30	obl	_	_
33	at	at	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
34	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | weavers *= weaver* |  |  |  |  | for the delicate silk and the purest gold thread | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **put** | infinitive | weavers *= weaver* *not said here* | both |  | weavers's own knapsacks |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent both=Goal |
| 3 | **continue** | past |  | weavers's pretended work |  |  | then |  | vn sustain-55.6 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent work=Theme |
| 4 | **pretend** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **loom** | present | the empty |  |  |  | night |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **work** |  | weavers *= weaver* |  |  |  |  |  | nom work «act intransitive»: 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:** «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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