---
title: Hitherto he had been a land crab; the land at last cast him adrift. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Hitherto he had been a land crab; the land at last cast him adrift. Who acts: boy, land crab. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Anne Lisbeth, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Anne Lisbeth, sentence 20

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Hitherto he had been a land crab; the land at last cast him adrift.

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**Who acts:** boy, land crab · **What happens:** be, cast · **To what, where:** land crab, boy

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Anne Lisbeth. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, land crab), 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:pg27200:5:20
# text = Hitherto he had been a land crab; the land at last cast him adrift.
1	Hitherto	hitherto	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	crab	crab	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	appos	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	nmod	_	_
13	cast	cast	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	adrift	adrift	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past · perfect | boy | a land crab |  |  |  | hitherto *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **cast** | past | a land crab | boy |  |  |  | adrift *property* | vn build-26.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Product |

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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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