---
title: Before him stood a little boy; he was naked, and the water flowed fr… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Before him stood a little boy; he was naked, and the water flowed from his long fair locks. Who acts: creature, water. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Saucy Boy, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Saucy Boy, sentence 8

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Before him stood a little boy; he was naked, and the water flowed from his long fair locks.

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**Who acts:** creature, water · **What happens:** stand, be, flow · **To what, where:** little boy, long fair locks

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Saucy Boy. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (creature, water), 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:pg27200:164:8
# text = Before him stood a little boy; he was naked, and the water flowed from his long fair locks.
1	Before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	3	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	naked	naked	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	flowed	flow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
18	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
19	fair	fair	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	locks	lock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | creature | a little boy |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer boy=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is** | past | creature |  |  |  |  | naked *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **flow** | past | the water |  |  | creature's long fair locks |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=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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