---
title: Years passed away, and at last the linen was so worn it could scarce… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Years passed away, and at last the linen was so worn it could scarcely hold together. " Who acts: Years, linen. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/34/39/)

<!-- 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 Flax](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/34/) / 39

# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Flax, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Years passed away, and at last the linen was so worn it could scarcely hold together. "

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Years, linen · **What happens:** pass away, be, hold together

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Years, linen), 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:pg27200:34:39
# text = Years passed away, and at last the linen was so worn it could scarcely hold together. "
1	Years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	passed	pass	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
3	away	away	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	linen	linen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
11	so	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	worn	worn	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
17	together	together	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass away** | participle | Years |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn die-42.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | worn *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **hold together** | could | linen |  |  |  |  | scarcely, together *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/34/38/)
- next →: [sentence 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/34/40/)
- ↑ back to [The Flax](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/34/)