---
title: That was the boy's favourite piece of furniture, but he dared not to… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: That was the boy's favourite piece of furniture, but he dared not touch it, for if he meddled with it he got a rap on the knuckles. Who acts: That, pendulum. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Twenty-third Evening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Twenty-third Evening, sentence 8

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That was the boy's favourite piece of furniture, but he dared not touch it, for if he meddled with it he got a rap on the knuckles.

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**Who acts:** That, pendulum · **What happens:** be, touch, meddle, get · **To what, where:** favourite piece, furniture, rap, knuckles

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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 (That, pendulum), 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:pg27200:114:8
# text = That was the boy's favourite piece of furniture, but he dared not touch it, for if he meddled with it he got a rap on the knuckles.
1	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	's	's	PART	POS	_	4	case	_	_
6	favourite	favourite	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	furniture	furniture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	dared	dare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
15	touch	touch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	parataxis	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
19	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	meddled	meddle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
22	with	with	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obl	_	_
24	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	parataxis	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	rap	rap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	_
28	on	on	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	knuckles	knuckle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | That | the boy's favourite piece |  |  |  | of furniture | tree rules |
| 2 | **touch** | past | pendulum | furniture |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme it=Co-Theme |
| 3 | **meddle** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | pendulum |  |  |  |  | with furniture | tree rules |
| 4 | **get** | past | pendulum | a rap |  | the knuckles |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent rap=Theme on knuckle=Source |

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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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