---
title: There he sat one day, and held his magnifying-glass to his eye, and… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There he sat one day, and held his magnifying-glass to his eye, and looked at a drop of water that had been taken out of a puddle by the ditch. Who acts: man, ditch. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Drop of Water, with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/23/9/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Drop of Water](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/23/) / 9

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Drop of Water, sentence 9

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There he sat one day, and held his magnifying-glass to his eye, and looked at a drop of water that had been taken out of a puddle by the ditch.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** man, ditch · **What happens:** sit, hold, look, take out · **To what, where:** magnifying glass, drop, puddle

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Drop of Water. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, ditch), 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:pg27200:23:9
# text = There he sat one day, and held his magnifying-glass to his eye, and looked at a drop of water that had been taken out of a puddle by the ditch.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
5	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
10	magnifying	magnifying	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	glass	glass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	eye	eye	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
19	at	at	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	drop	drop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	_
24	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	27	nsubj:pass	_	_
25	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
26	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	27	aux:pass	_	_
27	taken	take	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	21	acl:relcl	_	_
28	out	out	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
29	of	of	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	puddle	puddle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	_
32	by	by	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	ditch	ditch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | man |  |  | there | day |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **hold** | past | man *not said here* | man's magnifying glass |  |  |  | to man's eye | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent glass=Theme |
| 3 | **look** | past | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at a drop of water | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at drop=Theme |
| 4 | **take out** | past · perfect · passive | the ditch | a drop of water |  | a puddle |  |  | 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 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/23/8/)
- next →: [sentence 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/23/10/)
- ↑ back to [The Drop of Water](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/23/)