---
title: The porter's bell he was unable to reach, and however was he to get… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The porter's bell he was unable to reach, and however was he to get loose! Who acts: bell, creature. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Eventful Moment--a Most Unusual Journey, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Eventful Moment--a Most Unusual Journey, sentence 19

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The porter's bell he was unable to reach, and however was he to get loose!

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**Who acts:** bell, creature · **What happens:** be, reach

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Eventful Moment--a Most Unusual Journey. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bell, creature), 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:pg27200:43:19
# text = The porter's bell he was unable to reach, and however was he to get loose!
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	porter	porter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	's	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	bell	bell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
7	unable	unable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	however	however	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	parataxis	_	_
17	loose	loose	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the porter's bell |  |  |  |  | unable *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **reach** | to-infinitive | the porter's bell *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | creature |  |  |  |  | get, however, loose *property* | tree rules |

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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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