---
title: The church was large and handsome, and had been built centuries befo… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The church was large and handsome, and had been built centuries before by Scotchmen and Dutchmen; it stood some little way out of the town. Who acts: church. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 4, with its dependency tree and th
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Story From the Sand-hills, part 4, sentence 97

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The church was large and handsome, and had been built centuries before by Scotchmen and Dutchmen; it stood some little way out of the town.

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**Who acts:** church · **What happens:** be, build, stand · **To what, where:** little way, town

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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 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (church), 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:pg27200:161:97
# text = The church was large and handsome, and had been built centuries before by Scotchmen and Dutchmen; it stood some little way out of the town.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	church	church	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	handsome	handsome	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	built	build	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
12	centuries	century	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
13	before	before	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	by	by	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	Scotchmen	Scotchmen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	Dutchmen	Dutchmen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
21	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	23	det	_	_
22	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
24	out	out	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the church |  |  |  |  | large *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | the church *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **build** | past · perfect · passive | the church *not said here* |  |  |  | before Scotchmen and Dutchmen; century |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V» |
| 4 | **stand** | past | church | some little way |  | the town |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent way=Theme out town=Destination |

<!-- .note -->
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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