---
title: "A story, a story," cried the children, pulling a little fat man tow… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "A story, a story," cried the children, pulling a little fat man towards the tree. Who acts: story. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Fir Tree, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Fir Tree, sentence 83

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"A story, a story," cried the children, pulling a little fat man towards the tree.

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**Who acts:** story · **What happens:** cry, pull · **To what, where:** children, little fat man, tree

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Fir Tree. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (story), 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:pg27200:33:83
# text = "A story, a story," cried the children, pulling a little fat man towards the tree.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
9	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	pulling	pull	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
15	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
16	fat	fat	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
18	towards	towards	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | a story and a story | the children |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Topic |
| 2 | **pull** | gerund | a story and a story *not said here* | a little fat man |  | the tree |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent man=Theme towards tree=Destination |

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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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