---
title: The prisoner scratched pictures and verses with white chalk on the b… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The prisoner scratched pictures and verses with white chalk on the black walls, but I did not read the verses. Who acts: prisoner, I. 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
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, What the Fourth Mouse, Who Spoke Before the Third, Had to Tell, sentence 9

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The prisoner scratched pictures and verses with white chalk on the black walls, but I did not read the verses.

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**Who acts:** prisoner, I · **What happens:** scratch, not read · **To what, where:** pictures, black walls, verses

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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 (prisoner, I), 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:pg27200:181:9
# text = The prisoner scratched pictures and verses with white chalk on the black walls, but I did not read the verses.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	prisoner	prisoner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	scratched	scratch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	pictures	picture	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	verses	verse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	chalk	chalk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	walls	wall	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	read	read	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	verses	verse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **scratch** | past | the prisoner | pictures and verses |  | the black walls |  | with white chalk | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent picture=Theme on wall=Destination |
| 2 | **not** **read** | past · do-support | I | the verses |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent verse=Topic |

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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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