---
title: He brought his little ladder to help her, and so they contrived to r… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He brought his little ladder to help her, and so they contrived to reach the floor. Who acts: place, edge. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Shepherdess and the Sheep, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Shepherdess and the Sheep, sentence 29

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He brought his little ladder to help her, and so they contrived to reach the floor.

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**Who acts:** place, edge · **What happens:** bring, help, contrive, reach · **To what, where:** little ladder, sweep, floor

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Shepherdess and the Sheep. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (place, edge), 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:pg27200:166:29
# text = He brought his little ladder to help her, and so they contrived to reach the floor.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	brought	bring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	ladder	ladder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
8	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	contrived	contrive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	floor	floor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bring** | past | place | place's little ladder |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent ladder=Theme |
| 2 | **help** | to-infinitive | place *not said here* |  | sweep |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **contrive** | past | edge |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **reach** | to-infinitive | edge *not said here* | the floor |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent floor=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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