---
title: It was useful to George, and did not seem long at all, except when h… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It was useful to George, and did not seem long at all, except when he happened to be thinking of his home. Who acts: hand, George. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 2, sentence 38

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It was useful to George, and did not seem long at all, except when he happened to be thinking of his home.

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**Who acts:** hand, George · **What happens:** be, not seem, happen, think · **To what, where:** George

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Porter's Son, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hand, George), 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:pg27200:147:38
# text = It was useful to George, and did not seem long at all, except when he happened to be thinking of his home.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	useful	useful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	George	George	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	seem	seem	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
11	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	xcomp	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	except	except	ADP	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	aux	_	_
21	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	18	advcl	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	home	home	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | hand |  | George |  |  | useful *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **seem** | past · do-support |  |  |  |  |  | long *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **happen** | past | George |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **think** *speech: other* | to-infinitive · progressive | George *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of George's home | vn focus-87.1-1 «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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