---
title: They had been lying asleep for some time, when suddenly something wa… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They had been lying asleep for some time, when suddenly something was thrown into the yard for them to eat. Who acts: fowls. 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 75

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They had been lying asleep for some time, when suddenly something was thrown into the yard for them to eat.

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**Who acts:** fowls · **What happens:** lie, throw, eat · **To what, where:** something

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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 (fowls), 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:pg27200:145:75
# text = They had been lying asleep for some time, when suddenly something was thrown into the yard for them to eat.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	aux	_	_
4	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	xcomp	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	8	det	_	_
8	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	14	mark	_	_
11	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	thrown	throw	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
15	into	into	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	yard	yard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past · perfect · progressive | fowls *= fowl* |  |  |  | time | asleep *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **throw** | past · passive |  | something |  |  |  | into the yard *result* | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.result»: subject=Theme into yard=Result |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive | fowls *= fowl* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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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