---
title: They pretended to roll the cloth off the looms; cut the air with the… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They pretended to roll the cloth off the looms; cut the air with their scissors; and sewed with needles without any thread in them. Who acts: rogues. 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 64

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They pretended to roll the cloth off the looms; cut the air with their scissors; and sewed with needles without any thread in them.

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**Who acts:** rogues · **What happens:** pretend, roll, cut, sew · **To what, where:** cloth, looms, air

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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 (rogues), 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:pg1597:2:64
# text = They pretended to roll the cloth off the looms; cut the air with their scissors; and sewed with needles without any thread in them.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	pretended	pretend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	roll	roll	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	cloth	cloth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	off	off	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	looms	loom	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
11	cut	cut	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	scissors	scissors	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	sewed	sew	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
20	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	needles	needle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl	_	_
22	without	without	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	24	det	_	_
24	thread	thread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
25	in	in	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pretend** | past | rogues *= rogue* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **roll** | to-infinitive | rogues *= rogue* *not said here* | the cloth |  | the looms |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent cloth=Theme off loom=Trajectory |
| 3 | **cut** | infinitive |  | the air |  |  |  | with rogues's scissors | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent air=Patient with scissors=Instrument |
| 4 | **sew** | past | rogues *= rogue* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with needles; without any thread; in rogues *= rogue* | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme in they=Destination |

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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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