---
title: Death is the most certain messenger, after all, in spite of his vari… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Death is the most certain messenger, after all, in spite of his various occupations. Who acts: Death, affair. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Third Visit, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Third Visit, sentence 31

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Death is the most certain messenger, after all, in spite of his various occupations.

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**Who acts:** Death, affair · **What happens:** be, spite, occupy · **To what, where:** certain messenger, various occupations

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Third Visit. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Death, affair), 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:pg27200:138:31
# text = Death is the most certain messenger, after all, in spite of his various occupations.
1	Death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	5	advmod	_	_
5	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	messenger	messenger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	after	after	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	spite	spite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	various	various	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	occupations	occupation	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | Death | the certain messenger and spite of affair's various occupations |  |  | after all |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **spite** |  |  | affair's various occupations |  |  |  |  | nom spite «feeling transitive»: of=patient |
| 3 | **occupy** |  | affair |  |  |  |  |  | nom occupation «act transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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