---
title: But the pieces had got such an impetus in them, that they could not… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But the pieces had got such an impetus in them, that they could not stop themselves. Who acts: pieces, people. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bottle Neck, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Bottle Neck, sentence 140

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But the pieces had got such an impetus in them, that they could not stop themselves.

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**Who acts:** pieces, people · **What happens:** get, not stop · **To what, where:** impetus, people

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Bottle Neck. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (pieces, people), 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:pg27200:13:140
# text = But the pieces had got such an impetus in them, that they could not stop themselves.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	got	get	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	8	det:predet	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	impetus	impetus	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	stop	stop	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
17	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past · perfect | the pieces | such impetus |  |  |  | in people | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer impetus=Stimulus |
| 2 | **not** **stop** | could | people | people |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Subeventuality themselves=Eventuality |

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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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