---
title: In a house, with a large courtyard, in a provincial town, at that ti… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: In a house, with a large courtyard, in a provincial town, at that time of the year in which people say the evenings are growing longer, a family circle were gathered together at their old home. Who acts: people, evenings. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old Grave-stone, sentence 1

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In a house, with a large courtyard, in a provincial town, at that time of the year in which people say the evenings are growing longer, a family circle were gathered together at their old home.

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**Who acts:** people, evenings · **What happens:** say, grow, gather · **To what, where:** family circle, house · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Grave-stone. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (people, evenings), 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:pg27200:130:1
# text = In a house, with a large courtyard, in a provincial town, at that time of the year in which people say the evenings are growing longer, a family circle were gathered together at their old home.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	courtyard	courtyard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	provincial	provincial	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	17	det	_	_
17	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl:unmarked	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	24	obl	_	_
23	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nsubj	_	_
24	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	evenings	evening	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	nsubj	_	_
27	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
28	growing	grow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	24	ccomp	_	_
29	longer	long	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	28	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
31	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
32	family	family	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	compound	_	_
33	circle	circle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	nsubj:pass	_	_
34	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	35	aux:pass	_	_
35	gathered	gather	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
36	together	together	ADV	RB	_	35	advmod	_	_
37	at	at	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
38	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	40	nmod:poss	_	_
39	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	40	amod	_	_
40	home	home	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	35	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
41	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	35	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | people |  |  |  | in that time of the year |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **grow** | present · progressive | the evenings |  |  |  |  | long *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **gather** | past · passive |  | a family circle |  | a house and a large courtyard and a provincial town |  | at people's old home; together *property* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.source NP.asset»: subject=Theme at home=Asset |

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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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