---
title: How can such a creature be allowed to live, and wander about upon th… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: How can such a creature be allowed to live, and wander about upon the roofs. Who acts: creature. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Portuguese Duck, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Portuguese Duck, sentence 14

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How can such a creature be allowed to live, and wander about upon the roofs.

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**Who acts:** creature · **What happens:** allow, live, wander · **To what, where:** creature, roofs

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Portuguese Duck. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (creature), 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:pg27200:145:14
# text = How can such a creature be allowed to live, and wander about upon the roofs.
1	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
3	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	5	det:predet	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	allowed	allow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	advcl	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	wander	wander	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	about	about	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	roofs	roof	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **allow** | can · passive |  | such creature |  |  |  |  | vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V NP S»: subject=Beneficiary clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **live** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | such creature *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **wander** | present |  |  |  | the roofs |  | about *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon roof=Trajectory |

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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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