---
title: The sealing-wax had come off, and she was quite black; but black mak… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The sealing-wax had come off, and she was quite black; but black makes a person look slender, so she thought herself even finer than before. Who acts: sealing wax, wax, person. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Darning-needle, with its dependency tree and 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Darning-needle, sentence 55

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The sealing-wax had come off, and she was quite black; but black makes a person look slender, so she thought herself even finer than before.

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**Who acts:** sealing wax, wax, person · **What happens:** come off, be, make, look, think · **To what, where:** person

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Darning-needle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sealing wax, wax, person), 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:pg27200:21:55
# text = The sealing-wax had come off, and she was quite black; but black makes a person look slender, so she thought herself even finer than before.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	sealing	sealing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	wax	wax	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
5	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	come	come	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	off	off	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	makes	make	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	person	person	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
21	slender	slender	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
23	so	so	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
24	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	parataxis	_	_
26	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	28	nsubj	_	_
27	even	even	ADV	RB	_	28	advmod	_	_
28	finer	fine	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	25	ccomp	_	_
29	than	than	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	before	before	ADV	RB	_	28	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come off** | past · perfect | the sealing wax |  |  |  |  | off *property* | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past | wax |  |  |  |  | black *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **make** | present | the sealing wax *not said here* | a person |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **look** | infinitive | a person *not said here* |  |  |  |  | slender *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 5 | **think** *speech: other* | past | wax |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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