---
title: Towards evening, he reached a poor little cottage that seemed ready… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Towards evening, he reached a poor little cottage that seemed ready to fall, and only remained standing because it could not decide on which side to fall first. Who acts: tongue, poor little cottage, cottage. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Ugly Duckling
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Ugly Duckling, sentence 86

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Towards evening, he reached a poor little cottage that seemed ready to fall, and only remained standing because it could not decide on which side to fall first.

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**Who acts:** tongue, poor little cottage, cottage · **What happens:** reach, seem, fall, remain, stand, not decide · **To what, where:** poor little cottage

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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 (tongue, poor little cottage, cottage), 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:pg27200:201:86
# text = Towards evening, he reached a poor little cottage that seemed ready to fall, and only remained standing because it could not decide on which side to fall first.
1	Towards	toward	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	compound	_	_
2	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
7	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	cottage	cottage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
10	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	xcomp	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	only	only	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	remained	remain	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
19	standing	stand	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	xcomp	_	_
20	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
22	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
23	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	24	advmod	_	_
24	decide	decide	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	advcl	_	_
25	on	on	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	which	which	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	27	det	_	_
27	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
28	to	to	PART	TO	_	29	mark	_	_
29	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	advcl	_	_
30	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	29	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reach** | past | tongue | a poor little cottage |  |  | evening |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent cottage=Theme |
| 2 | **seem** | past | a poor little cottage |  |  |  |  | ready *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **fall** | to-infinitive | a poor little cottage *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **remain** | past | tongue *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **stand** | gerund | tongue *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **not** **decide** | could | cottage |  |  |  |  | on which side | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V PP.theme S»: agent=Agent on side=Topic |
| 7 | **fall** | to-infinitive | cottage *not said here* |  |  |  |  | first *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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