---
title: They were now on the stairs, and in a small closet at the top a lamp… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They were now on the stairs, and in a small closet at the top a lamp was burning. Who acts: eyes, lamp. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Prince and Princess, 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/pg27200/173/79/)

<!-- 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 Prince and Princess](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/173/) / 79

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Prince and Princess, sentence 79

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They were now on the stairs, and in a small closet at the top a lamp was burning.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** eyes, lamp · **What happens:** be, burn · **To what, where:** stairs, top

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Prince and Princess. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eyes, lamp), 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:pg27200:173:79
# text = They were now on the stairs, and in a small closet at the top a lamp was burning.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	stairs	stair	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	closet	closet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	appos	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	lamp	lamp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	burning	burn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | eyes *= eye* |  |  | the stairs | now |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **burn** | past · progressive | a lamp | the top *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent top=Theme |

<!-- .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 78](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/173/78/)
- next →: [sentence 80](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/173/80/)
- ↑ back to [The Prince and Princess](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/173/)