---
title: And then the robber-girl drew a long knife from a chink in the wall,… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: And then the robber-girl drew a long knife from a chink in the wall, and let it slide gently over the reindeer's neck. Who acts: robber girl, knife. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Robber-girl, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Little Robber-girl, sentence 34

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And then the robber-girl drew a long knife from a chink in the wall, and let it slide gently over the reindeer's neck.

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**Who acts:** robber girl, knife · **What happens:** draw, let, slide · **To what, where:** long knife, chink, knife, neck

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Robber-girl. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (robber girl, knife), 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:pg27200:174:34
# text = And then the robber-girl drew a long knife from a chink in the wall, and let it slide gently over the reindeer's neck.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	robber	robber	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	drew	draw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	from	from	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	chink	chink	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	wall	wall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	slide	slide	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	gently	gently	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
23	over	over	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	reindeer	reindeer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	's	's	PART	POS	_	25	case	_	_
27	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **draw** | past | the robber girl | a long knife |  | a chink in the wall | then |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent knife=Theme from chink=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **let** | infinitive | the robber girl *not said here* | knife |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **slide** | infinitive | knife *not said here* |  |  | the reindeer's neck |  | gently *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over neck=Trajectory |

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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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