---
title: “Hear how it beats like a drum on the dock-leaves!” said Father Snail. — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Hear how it beats like a drum on the dock-leaves!” said Father Snail. Who acts: house, Father Snail. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Happy Family, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Happy Family, sentence 12

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“Hear how it beats like a drum on the dock-leaves!” said Father Snail.

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**Who acts:** house, Father Snail · **What happens:** hear, beat, say · **To what, where:** dock leaves · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Happy Family. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (house, Father Snail), 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:pg1597:20:12
# text = “Hear how it beats like a drum on the dock-leaves!” said Father Snail.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	ccomp	_	_
3	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	beats	beat	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
6	like	like	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	drum	drum	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
11	dock	dock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	leaves	leaf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	Father	Father	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	Snail	Snail	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **beat** *in a quote* | present | house |  |  | the dock leaves |  | like a drum | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on leaf=Location |
| 3 | **say** *speech: express* | past | Father Snail |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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