---
title: People appeared with spades and poles; they dug round the roots of t… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: People appeared with spades and poles; they dug round the roots of the tree, deeper and deeper, and beneath it. Who acts: People. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Dryad, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Dryad, part 2, sentence 1

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People appeared with spades and poles; they dug round the roots of the tree, deeper and deeper, and beneath it.

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**Who acts:** People · **What happens:** appear, dig · **To what, where:** tree

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Dryad, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (People), 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:pg27200:25:1
# text = People appeared with spades and poles; they dug round the roots of the tree, deeper and deeper, and beneath it.
1	People	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	appeared	appear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	spades	spade	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	poles	pole	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	dug	dig	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	round	round	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	roots	root	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	deeper	deep	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	9	parataxis	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	deeper	deep	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
22	beneath	beneath	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **appear** | past | People |  |  |  |  | with spades and poles | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **dig** | past | People |  |  | tree |  | round the roots of the tree | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent beneath it=Location |

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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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