---
title: There was a velvet chair, and a looking-glass against the wall, into… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There was a velvet chair, and a looking-glass against the wall, into which a person might be in danger of stepping, for it was as large as a door. Who acts: velvet chair, wall, chair. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, part 1, with its de
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/202/77/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/) / [Under the Willow-tree, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/202/) / 77

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Under the Willow-tree, part 1, sentence 77

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was a velvet chair, and a looking-glass against the wall, into which a person might be in danger of stepping, for it was as large as a door.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** velvet chair, wall, chair · **What happens:** be, look, step · **To what, where:** looking glass, danger

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (velvet chair, wall, chair), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg27200:202:77
# text = There was a velvet chair, and a looking-glass against the wall, into which a person might be in danger of stepping, for it was as large as a door.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	velvet	velvet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	chair	chair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
9	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	glass	glass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
12	against	against	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	wall	wall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
16	into	into	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	23	nsubj	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
20	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
21	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	cop	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	danger	danger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	appos	_	_
24	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
25	stepping	step	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	23	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
27	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	31	mark	_	_
28	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
29	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	31	cop	_	_
30	as	as	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	_
31	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	conj	_	_
32	as	as	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a velvet chair | a looking glass against the wall |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **look** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **is** | might | the wall |  |  | danger |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **step** | gerund | the wall *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **is** | past | chair |  |  |  |  | as a door; large *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 76](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/202/76/)
- next →: [sentence 78](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/202/78/)
- ↑ back to [Under the Willow-tree, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/202/)