---
title: It was a seaman, quite a little personage, so little as if he were a… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a seaman, quite a little personage, so little as if he were a midshipman; but a midshipman it was not. Who acts: castle, Tukey. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Dream of Little Tuk, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Dream of Little Tuk, sentence 39

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It was a seaman, quite a little personage, so little as if he were a midshipman; but a midshipman it was not.

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**Who acts:** castle, Tukey · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** seaman, midshipman

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Dream of Little Tuk. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (castle, Tukey), 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:pg1597:25:39
# text = It was a seaman, quite a little personage, so little as if he were a midshipman; but a midshipman it was not.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	seaman	seaman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	quite	quite	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	9	det:predet	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	personage	personage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	so	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
13	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
14	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	midshipman	midshipman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	midshipman	midshipman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
24	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	acl:relcl	_	_
25	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	24	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | castle | a seaman but a midshipman |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | past | Tukey | a midshipman |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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