---
title: They rush along by means of an invention they call 'railway;' but th… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They rush along by means of an invention they call 'railway;' but they often break their necks over it. Who acts: men. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Toad, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Toad, sentence 149

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They rush along by means of an invention they call 'railway;' but they often break their necks over it.

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**Who acts:** men · **What happens:** rush, mean, call, break · **To what, where:** railway, necks · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Toad. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men), 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:pg27200:194:149
# text = They rush along by means of an invention they call 'railway;' but they often break their necks over it.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	rush	rush	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	along	along	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	by	by	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	means	mean	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	invention	invention	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	call	call	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
11	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	railway	railway	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	often	often	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	break	break	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
19	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	necks	neck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	_
21	over	over	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **rush** | present | men *= man* |  |  |  |  | along *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **mean** | present |  |  |  |  |  | of a invention | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **call** | present | men *= man* | railway |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent railway=Recipient |
| 4 | **break** | present | men *= man* | men's necks |  | railway |  | often *property* | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer neck=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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