---
title: It was a most respectable old lamp, which had seen many, many years… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a most respectable old lamp, which had seen many, many years of service, and now was to retire with a pension. Who acts: lamp. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Street Lamp, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Old Street Lamp, sentence 3

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It was a most respectable old lamp, which had seen many, many years of service, and now was to retire with a pension.

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**Who acts:** lamp · **What happens:** be, see · **To what, where:** respectable old lamp

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Old Street Lamp. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lamp), 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:pg27200:133:3
# text = It was a most respectable old lamp, which had seen many, many years of service, and now was to retire with a pension.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
4	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	5	advmod	_	_
5	respectable	respectable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	lamp	lamp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	acl:relcl	_	_
12	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
14	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	service	service	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	23	advmod	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	retire	retire	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
24	with	with	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	pension	pension	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | lamp | a respectable old lamp |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | past · perfect · passive |  | a respectable old lamp |  |  | year |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Stimulus |
| 3 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  | now | with a pension; retire *property* | 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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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