---
title: "The maid took the matches and lighted them; dear me, how they sputt… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: "The maid took the matches and lighted them; dear me, how they sputtered and blazed up! Who acts: maid, matches. 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 clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/35/83/)

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Flying Trunk, sentence 83

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"The maid took the matches and lighted them; dear me, how they sputtered and blazed up!

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**Who acts:** maid, matches · **What happens:** take, light, sputter, blaze up · **To what, where:** matches, cutter

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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 (maid, matches), 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:pg27200:35:83
# text = "The maid took the matches and lighted them; dear me, how they sputtered and blazed up!
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	maid	maid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	matches	match	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	lighted	light	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
9	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	parataxis	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	sputtered	sputter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	blazed	blaze	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
19	up	up	ADP	RP	_	18	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** *in a quote* | past | the maid | the matches | cutter |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument i=Theme match=Destination |
| 2 | **light** *in a quote* | participle | the maid *not said here* | matches *= match* |  |  |  |  | vn preparing-26.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Product |
| 3 | **sputter** *in a quote* | past | matches *= match* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **blaze up** *in a quote* | past | matches *= match* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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