---
title: At the foot of the altar sat a living being, a young priest. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: At the foot of the altar sat a living being, a young priest. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Twenty-sixth Evening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Twenty-sixth Evening, sentence 10

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At the foot of the altar sat a living being, a young priest.

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**What happens:** sit · **To what, where:** living, foot

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Twenty-sixth Evening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg27200:117:10
# text = At the foot of the altar sat a living being, a young priest.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	foot	foot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	altar	altar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
7	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	living	living	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	priest	priest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past |  | a living |  | the foot of the altar |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent living=Theme at foot=Location |

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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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