---
title: But it was most charming of all when it came as an old grandmother,… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But it was most charming of all when it came as an old grandmother, with silvery hair, and such large, sensible eyes. Who acts: door, charming. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Will-o-the Wisp Is in the Town, Says the Moor Woman, with its dependency tree 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Will-o-the Wisp Is in the Town, Says the Moor Woman, sentence 14

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But it was most charming of all when it came as an old grandmother, with silvery hair, and such large, sensible eyes.

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**Who acts:** door, charming · **What happens:** be, come · **To what, where:** charming

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Will-o-the Wisp Is in the Town, Says the Moor Woman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (door, charming), 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:pg27200:211:14
# text = But it was most charming of all when it came as an old grandmother, with silvery hair, and such large, sensible eyes.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	5	advmod	_	_
5	charming	charming	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	5	nmod	_	_
8	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	as	as	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	grandmother	grandmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	silvery	silvery	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	sensible	sensible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | door | charming |  |  |  | of all | tree rules |
| 2 | **come** | past | charming |  |  |  |  | as a old grandmother; with silvery hair | vn escape-51.1-1 «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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