---
title: In the spring; they began to pull the house itself down; people call… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: In the spring; they began to pull the house itself down; people called it complete rubbish. Who acts: portraits, people. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old House, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old House, sentence 119

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In the spring; they began to pull the house itself down; people called it complete rubbish.

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**Who acts:** portraits, people · **What happens:** begin, pull down, call · **To what, where:** house, shop · **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 House. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (portraits, 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:pg27200:131:119
# text = In the spring; they began to pull the house itself down; people called it complete rubbish.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	spring	spring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	3	punct	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	pull	pull	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	itself	itself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Emp|Reflex=Yes	10	nmod:unmarked	_	_
12	down	down	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
15	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	complete	complete	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	rubbish	rubbish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | portraits *= portrait* |  |  |  | spring |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **pull down** | to-infinitive | portraits *= portrait* *not said here* | the house  shop |  |  |  |  | vn push-12-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent house=Theme |
| 3 | **call** | past | people | shop |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Recipient |

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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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