---
title: It was built entirely of porcelain, and very costly, but so delicate… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It was built entirely of porcelain, and very costly, but so delicate and brittle that whoever touched it was obliged to be careful. Who acts: whoever. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Nightingale, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Nightingale, sentence 4

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It was built entirely of porcelain, and very costly, but so delicate and brittle that whoever touched it was obliged to be careful.

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**Who acts:** whoever · **What happens:** build, touch, oblige, be · **To what, where:** palace

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Nightingale. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (whoever), 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:pg27200:125:4
# text = It was built entirely of porcelain, and very costly, but so delicate and brittle that whoever touched it was obliged to be careful.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	built	build	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	entirely	entirely	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	porcelain	porcelain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	very	very	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	costly	costly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	so	so	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	delicate	delicate	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	conj	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	brittle	brittle	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	conj	_	_
17	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	whoever	whoever	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
19	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj:pass	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux:pass	_	_
22	obliged	oblige	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	ccomp	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
24	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	cop	_	_
25	careful	careful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **build** | past · passive |  | palace |  |  |  | of porcelain; entirely *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product |
| 2 | **touch** | past | whoever |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **oblige** | past · passive |  | palace |  |  |  |  | vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 4 | **is** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | careful *property* | tree rules |

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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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