---
title: In the avenue he met two school-boys, who appeared to belong to a be… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: In the avenue he met two school-boys, who appeared to belong to a better class of society, but whose inferior abilities kept them in the lowest class at school. Who acts: boy, two school boys, inferior abilities. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Clerk's T
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation, sentence 94

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In the avenue he met two school-boys, who appeared to belong to a better class of society, but whose inferior abilities kept them in the lowest class at school.

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**Who acts:** boy, two school boys, inferior abilities · **What happens:** meet, appear, belong, keep · **To what, where:** two school boys, avenue, birds, lowest class

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Clerk's Transformation. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, two school boys, inferior abilities), 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:pg27200:44:94
# text = In the avenue he met two school-boys, who appeared to belong to a better class of society, but whose inferior abilities kept them in the lowest class at school.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	avenue	avenue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
7	school	school	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
12	appeared	appear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	belong	belong	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	18	amod	_	_
18	class	class	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	society	society	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
22	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
23	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	25	nmod:poss	_	_
24	inferior	inferior	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	abilities	ability	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	nsubj	_	_
26	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
27	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	obj	_	_
28	in	in	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
30	lowest	low	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	31	amod	_	_
31	class	class	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	_
32	at	at	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
33	school	school	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **meet** | past | boy | two school boys |  | the avenue |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boy=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **appear** | past | two school boys |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 3 | **belong** | to-infinitive | two school boys *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to a better class of society | vn attend-107.4-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **keep** | past | inferior abilities | birds *= bird* |  | the lowest class |  | at school | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent they=Theme in class=Location |

<!-- .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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