---
title: "It is just as if some one was practising a piece that he could not… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "It is just as if some one was practising a piece that he could not manage; it is always the same piece. Who acts: foreign, music. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Shadow, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Shadow, sentence 19

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"It is just as if some one was practising a piece that he could not manage; it is always the same piece.

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**Who acts:** foreign, music · **What happens:** be, not manage · **To what, where:** same piece

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Shadow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (foreign, music), 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:pg27200:165:19
# text = "It is just as if some one was practising a piece that he could not manage; it is always the same piece.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
4	just	just	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
5	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	8	det	_	_
8	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	practising	practise	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	csubj	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
17	manage	manage	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	24	punct	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
20	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
21	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	24	advmod	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present · progressive | foreign |  |  |  |  | practise *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **manage** *in a quote* | could | music |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | foreign | the same piece |  |  |  | always *property* | 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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