---
title: He would sit and look at the wall from which the plaster had in some… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He would sit and look at the wall from which the plaster had in some places fallen off, and fancy all sorts of scenes which had been in former times. Who acts: house, plaster, scenes. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old House, with its dependency tree an
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old House, sentence 15

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He would sit and look at the wall from which the plaster had in some places fallen off, and fancy all sorts of scenes which had been in former times.

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**Who acts:** house, plaster, scenes · **What happens:** sit, look, have, fall off, fancy, be · **To what, where:** wall, places, sorts, scenes

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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 (house, plaster, scenes), 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:pg27200:131:15
# text = He would sit and look at the wall from which the plaster had in some places fallen off, and fancy all sorts of scenes which had been in former times.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	sit	sit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	wall	wall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	from	from	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	obl	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	plaster	plaster	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	16	det	_	_
16	places	place	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
17	fallen	fall	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	acl	_	_
18	off	off	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	fancy	fancy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
22	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	23	det	_	_
23	sorts	sort	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	_
24	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	scenes	scene	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nmod	_	_
26	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	31	nsubj	_	_
27	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	31	aux	_	_
28	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	31	cop	_	_
29	in	in	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	former	former	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	amod	_	_
31	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | would | house |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **look** | infinitive | house *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at the wall | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at wall=Theme |
| 3 | **have** | past | the plaster |  |  | the wall |  | in some places | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **fall off** | participle |  | some places *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 5 | **fancy** | infinitive | house *not said here* | all sorts of scenes |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer sort=Stimulus |
| 6 | **is** | past · perfect | scenes |  |  |  | in former times |  | tree rules |
| 7 | **sort** |  |  | scenes |  |  |  |  | nom sort «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .note -->
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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