---
title: They read deep and learned books to him, and then the lightest and m… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They read deep and learned books to him, and then the lightest and most trifling that could be found, but all to no purpose. Who acts: plants. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Leaf From Heaven, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, A Leaf From Heaven, sentence 37

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They read deep and learned books to him, and then the lightest and most trifling that could be found, but all to no purpose.

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**Who acts:** plants · **What happens:** read, learn, trifle, find · **To what, where:** books, king, lightest

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, A Leaf From Heaven. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (plants), 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:pg27200:49:37
# text = They read deep and learned books to him, and then the lightest and most trifling that could be found, but all to no purpose.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	read	read	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	deep	deep	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	learned	learn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
6	books	book	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
11	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	lightest	light	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	20	nsubj:pass	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	16	advmod	_	_
16	trifling	trifle	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	conj	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj:pass	_	_
18	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	aux:pass	_	_
20	found	find	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	20	obl	_	_
24	to	to	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	26	det	_	_
26	purpose	purpose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **read** | past | plants *= plant* |  |  |  |  | deep *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **learn** | past | plants *= plant* *not said here* | books | king |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent book=Topic |
| 3 | **trifle** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn trifle-105.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **find** | could · passive |  | the lightest |  |  |  | all *obl* | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: subject=Topic |

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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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