---
title: They were sitting behind the cabin door, eating from a delft plate,… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They were sitting behind the cabin door, eating from a delft plate, which they had placed between them. Who acts: terms. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 3, sentence 44

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They were sitting behind the cabin door, eating from a delft plate, which they had placed between them.

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**Who acts:** terms · **What happens:** sit, eat, place · **To what, where:** cabin door, delft plate

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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 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (terms), 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:pg27200:160:44
# text = They were sitting behind the cabin door, eating from a delft plate, which they had placed between them.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	cabin	cabin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	_
10	from	from	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	delft	delft	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	plate	plate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
17	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	placed	place	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	acl:relcl	_	_
19	between	between	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · progressive | terms *= term* |  |  | the cabin door |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent behind door=Location |
| 2 | **eat** | gerund | terms *= term* *not said here* |  |  | a delft plate |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V PP.source»: agent=Agent from plate=Source |
| 3 | **place** | past · perfect · passive |  | a delft plate |  |  |  | between terms *= term* | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme between they=Destination |

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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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