---
title: There was an old mansion surrounded by a marshy ditch with a drawbri… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There was an old mansion surrounded by a marshy ditch with a drawbridge which was but seldom let down:--not all guests are good people. Who acts: old mansion, guests. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Delaying Is Not Forgetting, with its dependency tree and th
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Delaying Is Not Forgetting, sentence 1

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There was an old mansion surrounded by a marshy ditch with a drawbridge which was but seldom let down:--not all guests are good people.

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**Who acts:** old mansion, guests · **What happens:** be, surround, not be · **To what, where:** old mansion, good people

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Delaying Is Not Forgetting. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old mansion, guests), 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:pg27200:22:1
# text = There was an old mansion surrounded by a marshy ditch with a drawbridge which was but seldom let down:--not all guests are good people.
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	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	mansion	mansion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	surrounded	surround	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	_
7	by	by	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	marshy	marshy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	ditch	ditch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl:agent	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	drawbridge	drawbridge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
14	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	18	obj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	seldom	seldom	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl:relcl	_	_
19	down	down	ADP	RP	_	18	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	27	advmod	_	_
23	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	24	det	_	_
24	guests	guest	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	nsubj	_	_
25	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
26	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a old mansion |  |  | there |  | with a drawbridge | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **surround** | participle |  | a old mansion *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | let, seldom *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **is a** | present | all guests | good people |  |  |  |  | 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.

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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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