---
title: Last year the old apple-tree by the grass-plot only bore one apple,… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Last year the old apple-tree by the grass-plot only bore one apple, and we kept it in the cupboard till it was quite withered and rotten. Who acts: old apple tree, we, tree. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What the Old Man Does Is Always Right, with its depe
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, What the Old Man Does Is Always Right, sentence 67

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Last year the old apple-tree by the grass-plot only bore one apple, and we kept it in the cupboard till it was quite withered and rotten.

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**Who acts:** old apple tree, we, tree · **What happens:** bear, keep, be · **To what, where:** one apple, tree, cupboard

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What the Old Man Does Is Always Right. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old apple tree, we, tree), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg27200:8276`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg27200:132:67
# text = Last year the old apple-tree by the grass-plot only bore one apple, and we kept it in the cupboard till it was quite withered and rotten.
1	Last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
2	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
5	apple	apple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	_
7	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
8	by	by	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	_
12	plot	plot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
13	only	only	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	bore	bear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	apple	apple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	cupboard	cupboard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
25	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	29	mark	_	_
26	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
27	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	cop	_	_
28	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
29	withered	withered	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	advcl	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
31	rotten	rotten	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	conj	_	_
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bear** | past | the old apple tree by the grass plot | one apple |  |  | year |  | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent apple=Patient |
| 2 | **keep** | past | we | tree |  | the cupboard |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent it=Theme in cupboard=Location |
| 3 | **is** | past | tree |  |  |  |  | withered *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | tree *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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