---
title: In the farmhouse was an old man who understood making soap into cake… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: In the farmhouse was an old man who understood making soap into cakes and balls, both for shaving and washing. Who acts: old man. 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 69

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In the farmhouse was an old man who understood making soap into cakes and balls, both for shaving and washing.

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**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** be, understand, make · **To what, where:** old man, farmhouse, soap, cakes

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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 (old man), 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:pg27200:124:69
# text = In the farmhouse was an old man who understood making soap into cakes and balls, both for shaving and washing.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	farmhouse	farmhouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
9	understood	understand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
10	making	make	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	xcomp	_	_
11	soap	soap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
12	into	into	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	cakes	cake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	balls	ball	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	both	both	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc:preconj	_	_
18	for	for	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	shaving	shaving	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	washing	washing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	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 |  | a old man both shaving and washing |  | the farmhouse |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **understand** | past | a old man both shaving and washing |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **make** | gerund | a old man both shaving and washing *not said here* | soap |  | cakes and balls |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP.material PP.product»: agent=Agent soap=Material into cake=Product |

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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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