---
title: But it must be at the age when grandfather's stick becomes a neighin… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: But it must be at the age when grandfather's stick becomes a neighing horse, with head, legs, and tail. Who acts: roof, stick. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, I. Little Rudy, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, I. Little Rudy, sentence 31

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But it must be at the age when grandfather's stick becomes a neighing horse, with head, legs, and tail.

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**Who acts:** roof, stick · **What happens:** be, become, neigh · **To what, where:** age, neighing horse

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, I. Little Rudy. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (roof, stick), 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:pg27200:52:31
# text = But it must be at the age when grandfather's stick becomes a neighing horse, with head, legs, and tail.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
3	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	age	age	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	12	mark	_	_
9	grandfather	grandfather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	's	's	PART	POS	_	9	case	_	_
11	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	becomes	become	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	neighing	neigh	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	amod	_	_
15	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
20	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | must | roof |  |  |  | at the age |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **become** | present | grandfather's stick | a neighing horse and legs |  |  |  |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **neigh** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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