---
title: There was nothing remarkable about the pen, excepting that it had be… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There was nothing remarkable about the pen, excepting that it had been dipped too deeply in the ink, but it was proud of that. Who acts: nothing, pen. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Flying Trunk, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Flying Trunk, sentence 70

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There was nothing remarkable about the pen, excepting that it had been dipped too deeply in the ink, but it was proud of that.

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**Who acts:** nothing, pen · **What happens:** be, except, dip · **To what, where:** pen, ink

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Flying Trunk. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nothing, pen), 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:pg27200:35:70
# text = There was nothing remarkable about the pen, excepting that it had been dipped too deeply in the ink, but it was proud of that.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	2	nsubj	_	_
4	remarkable	remarkable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
5	about	about	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	pen	pen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	excepting	except	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	dipped	dip	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	advcl	_	_
15	too	too	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	deeply	deeply	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	ink	ink	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
21	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
23	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
24	proud	proud	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **except** | gerund | nothing *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **dip** | past · perfect · passive |  | pen |  | the ink |  | deeply *property* | vn funnel-9.3 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: subject=Theme in ink=Trajectory |
| 4 | **is** | past | pen |  |  |  |  | of that; proud *property* | 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.

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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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