---
title: One evening, as he was sitting in his room, there was a gentle knock… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: One evening, as he was sitting in his room, there was a gentle knocking at the door. Who acts: man, gentle knocking. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shadow, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Shadow, sentence 60

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One evening, as he was sitting in his room, there was a gentle knocking at the door.

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**Who acts:** man, gentle knocking · **What happens:** sit, be · **To what, where:** room

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shadow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, gentle knocking), 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:pg1597:23:60
# text = One evening, as he was sitting in his room, there was a gentle knocking at the door.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
4	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	room	room	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	13	expl	_	_
13	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	gentle	gentle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	knocking	knocking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · progressive | man |  |  | man's room | evening |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in room=Location |
| 2 | **be** | past | a gentle knocking at the door |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «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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