---
title: Air balloons had not then been invented, nor steam-ships, nor railwa… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Air balloons had not then been invented, nor steam-ships, nor railways. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Philosopher's Stone, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Philosopher's Stone, sentence 154

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Air balloons had not then been invented, nor steam-ships, nor railways.

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**What happens:** not invent · **To what, where:** Air balloons

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Philosopher's Stone. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg27200:143:154
# text = Air balloons had not then been invented, nor steam-ships, nor railways.
1	Air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	compound	_	_
2	balloons	balloon	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
5	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	_
6	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	invented	invent	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	12	cc	_	_
10	steam	steam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	ships	ship	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	15	cc	_	_
15	railways	railway	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **invent** | past · perfect · passive |  | Air balloons |  |  | then | steam ships *obl*; railways *obl* | vn create-26.4-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Result |

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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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