---
title: He had seen the Toad in the grass, and stooped down and seized the l… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He had seen the Toad in the grass, and stooped down and seized the little creature anything but gently. Who acts: stork. 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 166

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He had seen the Toad in the grass, and stooped down and seized the little creature anything but gently.

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**Who acts:** stork · **What happens:** see, stoop down, seize · **To what, where:** Toad, grass, anything

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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 (stork), 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:pg27200:194:166
# text = He had seen the Toad in the grass, and stooped down and seized the little creature anything but gently.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	Toad	Toad	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	stooped	stoop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
12	down	down	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	seized	seize	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
16	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	14	obj	_	_
19	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	gently	gently	ADV	RB	_	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past · perfect | stork | the Toad |  | the grass |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer toad=Stimulus |
| 2 | **stoop down** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **seize** | past |  | anything |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Theme |

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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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