---
title: And the father knocked quite politely at a door, as if he were a str… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: And the father knocked quite politely at a door, as if he were a stranger, and then they both went in. Who acts: father, children. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, part 1, sentence 73

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And the father knocked quite politely at a door, as if he were a stranger, and then they both went in.

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**Who acts:** father, children · **What happens:** knock, be, go in · **To what, where:** stranger

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (father, children), 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:pg27200:202:73
# text = And the father knocked quite politely at a door, as if he were a stranger, and then they both went in.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	knocked	knock	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	politely	politely	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	stranger	stranger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
19	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	22	advmod	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	both	both	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	22	advmod	_	_
22	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
23	in	in	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **knock** | past | the father |  |  |  |  | at a door; politely *property* | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent at door=Patient |
| 2 | **is a** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | father | a stranger |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **go in** | past | children *= child* |  |  |  | then |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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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