---
title: But no, he was not looking at the clock, but at his mother's spinnin… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But no, he was not looking at the clock, but at his mother's spinning wheel, that stood just underneath it. Who acts: pendulum, that. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Twenty-third Evening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Twenty-third Evening, sentence 7

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But no, he was not looking at the clock, but at his mother's spinning wheel, that stood just underneath it.

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**Who acts:** pendulum, that · **What happens:** not look, stand · **To what, where:** clock

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Twenty-third Evening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (pendulum, that), 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:pg27200:114:7
# text = But no, he was not looking at the clock, but at his mother's spinning wheel, that stood just underneath it.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	no	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	clock	clock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	's	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	spinning	spinning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	wheel	wheel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj	_	_
21	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	parataxis	_	_
22	just	just	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
23	underneath	underneath	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **look** | past · progressive | pendulum |  |  |  |  | at pendulum's mother's spinning wheel; at the clock | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at clock=Theme |
| 2 | **stand** | past | that | clock |  |  |  | underneath *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=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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