---
title: In the middle of the cupboard door was the carved figure of a man mo… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: In the middle of the cupboard door was the carved figure of a man most ridiculous to look at. 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 4

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In the middle of the cupboard door was the carved figure of a man most ridiculous to look at.

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**What happens:** carve, be, look · **To what, where:** carved figure, middle

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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: 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:pg27200:166:4
# text = In the middle of the cupboard door was the carved figure of a man most ridiculous to look at.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	cupboard	cupboard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	carved	carve	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	amod	_	_
11	figure	figure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
15	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	16	advmod	_	_
16	ridiculous	ridiculous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	at	at	ADP	IN	_	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **carve** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | past |  | the carved figure |  | the middle of the cupboard door |  | of a man | tree rules |
| 3 | **look** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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