---
title: But his halter was not long enough to let him reach it and eat it. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But his halter was not long enough to let him reach it and eat it. Who acts: halter. 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 5

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But his halter was not long enough to let him reach it and eat it.

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**Who acts:** halter · **What happens:** be, reach, eat · **To what, where:** halter

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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 (halter), 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:pg27200:189:5
# text = But his halter was not long enough to let him reach it and eat it.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	halter	halter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	7	advmod	_	_
7	enough	enough	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	conj	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Ass's halter |  |  |  |  | enough, let *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **reach** | infinitive | Ass's halter *not said here* | halter |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **eat** | infinitive | Ass's halter *not said here* | halter |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |

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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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