---
title: The Book of Truth lay open before him, but, its pages were to him as… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The Book of Truth lay open before him, but, its pages were to him as blank paper. Who acts: Book, pages. 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 49

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The Book of Truth lay open before him, but, its pages were to him as blank paper.

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**Who acts:** Book, pages · **What happens:** lay, be, page

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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: who acts (Book, pages), 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:pg27200:143:49
# text = The Book of Truth lay open before him, but, its pages were to him as blank paper.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Book	Book	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	Truth	Truth	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
5	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	xcomp	_	_
7	before	before	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	pages	page	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	ccomp	_	_
17	as	as	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	blank	blank	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	paper	paper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	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 | **lay** | present | the Book of Truth |  |  |  | before point | open *property* | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent before he=Destination |
| 2 | **is** | past | Book's pages |  |  |  |  | to point; as blank paper | tree rules |
| 3 | **page** |  | Book |  |  |  |  |  | nom page «communication 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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