---
title: A little boy was holding them tightly, and said they were fine peas… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: A little boy was holding them tightly, and said they were fine peas for his pea-shooter. Who acts: little boy, peas. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Pea Blossom, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/141/14/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Pea Blossom, sentence 14

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A little boy was holding them tightly, and said they were fine peas for his pea-shooter.

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**Who acts:** little boy, peas · **What happens:** hold, say, be · **To what, where:** peas, fine peas · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Pea Blossom. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little boy, peas), 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:pg27200:141:14
# text = A little boy was holding them tightly, and said they were fine peas for his pea-shooter.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	tightly	tightly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	peas	pea	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	ccomp	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
17	pea	pea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	shooter	shooter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | past · progressive | a little boy | peas *= pea* |  |  |  | tightly *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a little boy *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | past | peas *= pea* | fine peas |  |  |  | for boy's pea shooter | 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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