---
title: They soon gathered some, cracked them, and ate the fine young kernel… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They soon gathered some, cracked them, and ate the fine young kernels, which were only just ripe. Who acts: quantities, fine young kernels. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Ib and Little Christina, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Ib and Little Christina, sentence 55

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They soon gathered some, cracked them, and ate the fine young kernels, which were only just ripe.

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**Who acts:** quantities, fine young kernels · **What happens:** gather, crack, eat, be · **To what, where:** some, quantities, fine young kernels

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Ib and Little Christina. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (quantities, fine young kernels), 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:pg27200:51:55
# text = They soon gathered some, cracked them, and ate the fine young kernels, which were only just ripe.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
3	gathered	gather	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	cracked	crack	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
7	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	kernels	kernel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
17	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
18	only	only	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
19	just	just	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	ripe	ripe	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **gather** | past | quantities *= quantity* | some |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn deduce-97.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent some=Theme |
| 2 | **crack** | past | quantities *= quantity* *not said here* | quantities *= quantity* |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location they=Theme |
| 3 | **eat** | past | quantities *= quantity* *not said here* | the fine young kernels |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent kernel=Patient |
| 4 | **is** | past | the fine young kernels |  |  |  |  | ripe *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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