---
title: If they were only plucked a little they would look no better than th… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: If they were only plucked a little they would look no better than the rest of us. Who acts: birds. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Neighbouring Families, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Neighbouring Families, sentence 55

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If they were only plucked a little they would look no better than the rest of us.

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**Who acts:** birds · **What happens:** pluck, look · **To what, where:** birds

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Neighbouring Families. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (birds), 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:pg27200:124:55
# text = If they were only plucked a little they would look no better than the rest of us.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
4	only	only	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	plucked	pluck	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	advcl	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	obl:unmarked	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
11	no	no	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	10	xcomp	_	_
13	than	than	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	rest	rest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pluck** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · passive |  | birds *= bird* |  |  |  | a little *obl:unmarked* | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **look** | would | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  | good *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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