---
title: My poor old grandfather is broken to pieces, and it is our fault. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: My poor old grandfather is broken to pieces, and it is our fault. Who acts: back. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/166/66/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [The Shepherdess and the Sheep](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/166/) / 66

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Shepherdess and the Sheep, sentence 66

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
My poor old grandfather is broken to pieces, and it is our fault.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** back · **What happens:** break, be · **To what, where:** poor old grandfather, fault

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (back), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:166:66
# text = My poor old grandfather is broken to pieces, and it is our fault.
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	grandfather	grandfather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	broken	break	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	fault	fault	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break** | present · passive |  | My poor old grandfather |  |  |  | to pieces *result* | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP PP.result»: subject=Patient to piece=Result |
| 2 | **is a** | present | back | our fault |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 65](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/166/65/)
- next →: [sentence 67](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/166/67/)
- ↑ back to [The Shepherdess and the Sheep](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/166/)