---
title: Now that would be a very pretty joke, if the spirit when it came bac… — Andersen's Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Now that would be a very pretty joke, if the spirit when it came back and looked for the body in East Street, were not to find one. Who acts: that, pretty joke. 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 ever
---

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# Andersen's Fairy Tales, The Shoes of Fortune, part 3, sentence 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Now that would be a very pretty joke, if the spirit when it came back and looked for the body in East Street, were not to find one.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** that, pretty joke · **What happens:** be, come back, look, not find · **To what, where:** pretty joke, East Street, one

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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 (that, pretty joke), 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:pg1597:7:6
# text = Now that would be a very pretty joke, if the spirit when it came back and looked for the body in East Street, were not to find one.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
2	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	very	very	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	joke	joke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	spirit	spirit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
13	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	back	back	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	East	East	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	compound	_	_
24	Street	Street	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
26	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
27	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	29	advmod	_	_
28	to	to	PART	TO	_	29	mark	_	_
29	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	_
30	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	29	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | would | that | a pretty joke and the spirit |  |  | now |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **come back** | past | a pretty joke and the spirit |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **look** | past | a pretty joke and the spirit *not said here* |  |  | East Street |  | for the body | vn rummage-35.5 «NP V PP.location PP.theme»: agent=Agent for body=Theme in street=Location |
| 4 | **not** **find** | past | a pretty joke and the spirit *not said here* | one |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Topic |

<!-- .note -->
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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