---
title: Time passed merrily in the large town which was his capital; strange… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Time passed merrily in the large town which was his capital; strangers arrived every day at the court. Who acts: large town, strangers. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Emperor's New Clothes, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Emperor's New Clothes, sentence 4

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Time passed merrily in the large town which was his capital; strangers arrived every day at the court.

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**Who acts:** large town, strangers · **What happens:** pass, be, arrive · **To what, where:** Time, large town, capital, court

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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 (large town, strangers), 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:pg1597:2:4
# text = Time passed merrily in the large town which was his capital; strangers arrived every day at the court.
1	Time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl:unmarked	_	_
2	passed	pass	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	1	acl	_	_
3	merrily	merrily	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
8	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	capital	capital	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
13	strangers	stranger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
14	arrived	arrive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	16	det	_	_
16	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl:unmarked	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	court	court	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass** | participle |  | Time *not said here* |  | the large town |  | merrily *property* | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme in town=Location |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the large town | Emperor's capital |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **arrive** | past | strangers |  |  | the court | day; time |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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