---
title: The children were playing with an apple; they shook the apple, and h… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The children were playing with an apple; they shook the apple, and heard the pips rattling in it. Who acts: children, pips. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Bachelor's Nightcap, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old Bachelor's Nightcap, sentence 62

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The children were playing with an apple; they shook the apple, and heard the pips rattling in it.

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**Who acts:** children, pips · **What happens:** play, shake, hear, rattle · **To what, where:** apple, pips

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Bachelor's Nightcap. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (children, pips), 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:pg27200:128:62
# text = The children were playing with an apple; they shook the apple, and heard the pips rattling in it.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	playing	play	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	apple	apple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	apple	apple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	pips	pip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	_
18	rattling	rattle	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	17	acl	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **play** | past · progressive | the children |  |  |  |  | with a apple | vn play-114.2-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent with apple=Theme |
| 2 | **shake** | past | children *= child* | the apple |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent apple=Patient |
| 3 | **hear** | past | children *= child* *not said here* | the pips |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer pip=Stimulus |
| 4 | **rattle** | gerund | the pips *not said here* |  |  | apple |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in it=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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