---
title: The question now was, if he could squeeze himself through the gratin… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The question now was, if he could squeeze himself through the grating, for he had never tried before. Who acts: man. A sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shoes of Fortune, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg1597/7/21/)

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Shoes of Fortune, part 3, sentence 21

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The question now was, if he could squeeze himself through the grating, for he had never tried before.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** be, squeeze, not try · **To what, where:** question, man, grating

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This is a sentence of «Andersen's Fairy Tales» by H. C. Andersen, The Shoes of Fortune, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg1597:7:21
# text = The question now was, if he could squeeze himself through the grating, for he had never tried before.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
3	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	squeeze	squeeze	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	appos	_	_
10	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obj	_	_
11	through	through	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	grating	grating	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	tried	try	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	conj	_	_
20	before	before	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | the question |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **squeeze** *a condition, not said to happen* | could | man | man |  | the grating |  |  | vn funnel-9.3-1-1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent himself=Theme through grating=Trajectory |
| 3 | **not** **try** | past · perfect | man |  |  |  |  | before *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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