---
title: The hen had very short legs, so she was called "Chickie short legs." — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The hen had very short legs, so she was called "Chickie short legs." Who acts: hen. 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 91

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The hen had very short legs, so she was called "Chickie short legs."

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**Who acts:** hen · **What happens:** have, call · **To what, where:** short legs, hen · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (hen), 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:pg27200:201:91
# text = The hen had very short legs, so she was called "Chickie short legs."
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	hen	hen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	so	so	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	parataxis	_	_
12	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	Chickie	Chickie	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
14	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | the hen | short legs |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent leg=Patient |
| 2 | **call** | past · passive |  | hen |  |  |  | Chickie short legs *obl* | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |

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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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