---
title: The ducks pecked him, the chickens beat him, and the girl who fed th… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The ducks pecked him, the chickens beat him, and the girl who fed the poultry kicked him with her feet. Who acts: ducks, chickens, girl. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Ugly Duckling, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Ugly Duckling, sentence 59

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The ducks pecked him, the chickens beat him, and the girl who fed the poultry kicked him with her feet.

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**Who acts:** ducks, chickens, girl · **What happens:** peck, beat, feed, kick · **To what, where:** cat, poultry

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Ugly Duckling. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ducks, chickens, girl), 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:pg27200:201:59
# text = The ducks pecked him, the chickens beat him, and the girl who fed the poultry kicked him with her feet.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	ducks	duck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	pecked	peck	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	chickens	chicken	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
8	beat	beat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
14	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
15	fed	feed	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	acl:relcl	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	poultry	poultry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	kicked	kick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	with	with	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **peck** | past | the ducks | cat |  |  |  |  | vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient |
| 2 | **beat** | present | the chickens | cat |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location he=Theme |
| 3 | **feed** | past | the girl |  | the poultry |  |  |  | vn feeding-39.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent poultry=Recipient |
| 4 | **kick** | past | the girl | cat |  |  |  | with girl's feet | vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent he=Patient with foot=Instrument |

<!-- .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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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