---
title: There was a lamp burning, but the walls were so black that they only… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There was a lamp burning, but the walls were so black that they only looked the blacker for it. Who acts: lamp, walls. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What the Fourth Mouse, Who Spoke Before the Third, Had to Tell, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, What the Fourth Mouse, Who Spoke Before the Third, Had to Tell, sentence 8

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There was a lamp burning, but the walls were so black that they only looked the blacker for it.

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**Who acts:** lamp, walls · **What happens:** be, burn, look

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, What the Fourth Mouse, Who Spoke Before the Third, Had to Tell. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lamp, walls), 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:pg27200:181:8
# text = There was a lamp burning, but the walls were so black that they only looked the blacker for it.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	lamp	lamp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
5	burning	burn	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	walls	wall	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
11	so	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
13	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	only	only	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	blacker	black	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	16	xcomp	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a lamp |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **burn** | gerund | a lamp *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | the walls |  |  |  |  | black *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **look** | past | walls *= wall* |  |  |  |  | black *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: 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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