---
title: He looked smart, for his shirt-frill, in which he had stuck a breast… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: He looked smart, for his shirt-frill, in which he had stuck a breast-pin, and his ruffles, were very fine. Who acts: mayor, ruffles. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, She Was Good For Nothing, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, She Was Good For Nothing, sentence 2

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He looked smart, for his shirt-frill, in which he had stuck a breast-pin, and his ruffles, were very fine.

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**Who acts:** mayor, ruffles · **What happens:** look, stick, be · **To what, where:** breast pin, shirt frill

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, She Was Good For Nothing. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mayor, ruffles), 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:pg27200:46:2
# text = He looked smart, for his shirt-frill, in which he had stuck a breast-pin, and his ruffles, were very fine.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	smart	smart	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
7	shirt	shirt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	frill	frill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	obl	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	stuck	stick	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	parataxis	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
17	breast	breast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	pin	pin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	ruffles	ruffle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
25	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	27	cop	_	_
26	very	very	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
27	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** | past | mayor |  |  |  |  | smart *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **stick** | past · perfect | mayor | a breast pin |  | mayor's shirt frill |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent pin=Theme in which=Destination |
| 3 | **is** | past | mayor's ruffles |  |  |  |  | fine *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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