---
title: The young fir trees in the forest began to long for Christmas, but i… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The young fir trees in the forest began to long for Christmas, but it was a long time to Christmas yet. Who acts: young fir trees, forest. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Thistle's Experiences, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Thistle's Experiences, sentence 49

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The young fir trees in the forest began to long for Christmas, but it was a long time to Christmas yet.

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**Who acts:** young fir trees, forest · **What happens:** begin, be · **To what, where:** long time

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Thistle's Experiences. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (young fir trees, forest), 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:pg27200:189:49
# text = The young fir trees in the forest began to long for Christmas, but it was a long time to Christmas yet.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	fir	fir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
8	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	8	advmod	_	_
11	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	Christmas	Christmas	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	parataxis	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	Christmas	Christmas	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	advcl	_	_
22	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | the young fir trees in the forest |  |  |  |  | for Christmas; long *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **is a** | past | forest | a long time |  |  | yet |  | tree rules |

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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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