---
title: It was, however, not an apple, but an old ball, which had lain for y… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It was, however, not an apple, but an old ball, which had lain for years in the gutter, and was soaked through with water. Who acts: apple, old ball. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Top and Ball, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Top and Ball, sentence 38

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It was, however, not an apple, but an old ball, which had lain for years in the gutter, and was soaked through with water.

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**Who acts:** apple, old ball · **What happens:** not be, lie, soak · **To what, where:** apple, gutter

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Top and Ball. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (apple, old ball), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg27200:13325`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg27200:195:38
# text = It was, however, not an apple, but an old ball, which had lain for years in the gutter, and was soaked through with water.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
4	however	however	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	apple	apple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	nsubj	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	lain	lie	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	acl:relcl	_	_
18	for	for	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	gutter	gutter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
25	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	aux:pass	_	_
26	soaked	soak	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	17	conj	_	_
27	through	through	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
28	with	with	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
29	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	_
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** | past | apple | a apple but a old ball |  |  |  | however *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **lie** | past · perfect | a old ball |  |  | the gutter | year |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in gutter=Location |
| 3 | **soak** | past · passive | a old ball *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with water; through *property* | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: with water=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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