---
title: This all happened a long time ago; King Christian VII, who sat on th… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: This all happened a long time ago; King Christian VII, who sat on the Danish throne, was still a young man. Who acts: This, Christian VII. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of eve
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/158/56/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 1, sentence 56

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This all happened a long time ago; King Christian VII, who sat on the Danish throne, was still a young man.

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**Who acts:** This, Christian VII · **What happens:** happen, sit, be · **To what, where:** Christian VII, Danish throne, young man

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, Christian VII), 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:pg27200:158:56
# text = This all happened a long time ago; King Christian VII, who sat on the Danish throne, was still a young man.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	nsubj	_	_
2	all	all	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl:unmarked	_	_
7	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
9	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod:desc	_	_
10	Christian	Christian	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	VII	VII	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
14	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	Danish	danish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	throne	throne	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
21	still	still	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	appos	_	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 | **happen** | past | This | Christian VII |  |  |  | ago, all *property* | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **sit** | past | Christian VII |  |  | the Danish throne |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on throne=Location |
| 3 | **is a** | past |  | a young man |  |  | still |  | tree rules |

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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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