---
title: There was one, but it lay in the coffin of the dead; no one knew any… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: There was one, but it lay in the coffin of the dead; no one knew anything about it. Who acts: one, leaf. 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 46

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There was one, but it lay in the coffin of the dead; no one knew anything about it.

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**Who acts:** one, leaf · **What happens:** be, lie, know · **To what, where:** coffin, anything

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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 (one, leaf), 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:pg27200:49:46
# text = There was one, but it lay in the coffin of the dead; no one knew anything about it.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	coffin	coffin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
15	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	16	det	_	_
16	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
18	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	17	obj	_	_
19	about	about	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | one |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **lie** | past | leaf |  |  | the coffin of the dead |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in coffin=Location |
| 3 | **know** | past | no one | anything |  |  |  | about leaf | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer anything=Stimulus |

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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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