---
title: But it was the old soldier with the red beard; he sat there nodding… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But it was the old soldier with the red beard; he sat there nodding his head and said: "Dear me, what pretty dancing shoes!" Who acts: wood, old soldier. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Red Shoes, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Red Shoes, sentence 54

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But it was the old soldier with the red beard; he sat there nodding his head and said: "Dear me, what pretty dancing shoes!"

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**Who acts:** wood, old soldier · **What happens:** be, sit, nod, say, dance · **To what, where:** old soldier, head, shoes · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Red Shoes. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wood, old soldier), 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:pg27200:154:54
# text = But it was the old soldier with the red beard; he sat there nodding his head and said: "Dear me, what pretty dancing shoes!"
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	soldier	soldier	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
15	nodding	nod	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	_
21	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	Dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	parataxis	_	_
23	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
25	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	27	nsubj	_	_
26	pretty	pretty	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
27	dancing	dance	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	22	conj	_	_
28	shoes	shoe	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | wood | the old soldier |  |  |  | with the red beard | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit** | past | the old soldier |  |  | there |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **nod** | gerund | the old soldier *not said here* | sin's head |  |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 4 | **say** *speech: express* | past | the old soldier *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **dance** *in a quote* | gerund |  | shoes |  |  |  | pretty *property* | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location shoe=Theme |

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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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