---
title: A young merchant, a child of the East, as I could tell by his eye an… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: A young merchant, a child of the East, as I could tell by his eye and his figure, rode pensively forward on his white snorting steed. Who acts: I, young merchant, child. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Twentieth Evening, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Twentieth Evening, sentence 7

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A young merchant, a child of the East, as I could tell by his eye and his figure, rode pensively forward on his white snorting steed.

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**Who acts:** I, young merchant, child · **What happens:** tell, ride, figure · **To what, where:** white snorting steed · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Twentieth Evening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, young merchant, child), 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:pg27200:111:7
# text = A young merchant, a child of the East, as I could tell by his eye and his figure, rode pensively forward on his white snorting steed.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	East	East	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
15	by	by	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	eye	eye	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	figure	figure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
22	rode	ride	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
23	pensively	pensively	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
24	forward	forward	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
25	on	on	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
26	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
27	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
28	snorting	snorting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	compound	_	_
29	steed	steed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | could | I |  |  |  |  | by child's eye and child's figure | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **ride** | past | a young merchant and a child of the East |  |  | child's white snorting steed |  | forward, pensively *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **figure** |  | child |  |  |  |  |  | nom figure «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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:** «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Project Gutenberg book 27200 (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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