---
title: It was steeped, and roasted, and broken, and combed; indeed, it scar… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It was steeped, and roasted, and broken, and combed; indeed, it scarcely knew what was done to it. Who acts: plenty. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Flax, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Flax, sentence 17

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It was steeped, and roasted, and broken, and combed; indeed, it scarcely knew what was done to it.

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**Who acts:** plenty · **What happens:** steep, roast, break, comb, know, do · **To what, where:** plenty · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Flax. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (plenty), 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:pg27200:34:17
# text = It was steeped, and roasted, and broken, and combed; indeed, it scarcely knew what was done to it.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	steeped	steep	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	roasted	roast	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	broken	break	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	combed	comb	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
14	indeed	indeed	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
19	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	ccomp	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **steep** | past · passive |  | plenty |  |  |  |  | vn cooking-45.3 «NP V NP.patient»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **roast** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn cooking-45.3 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **break** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **comb** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn wipe\_instr-10.4.2-1 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **know** | past | plenty |  |  |  |  | indeed, scarcely *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 6 | **do** | past · passive |  |  | plenty |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |

<!-- .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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