---
title: Something better always makes its appearance when old, worn-out thin… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Something better always makes its appearance when old, worn-out things fail." Who acts: Something, worn things. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, III. the Uncle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, III. the Uncle, sentence 16

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Something better always makes its appearance when old, worn-out things fail."

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**Who acts:** Something, worn things · **What happens:** make, fail · **To what, where:** appearance

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, III. the Uncle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Something, worn things), 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:pg27200:54:16
# text = Something better always makes its appearance when old, worn-out things fail."
1	Something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	4	nsubj	_	_
2	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	1	amod	_	_
3	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	4	advmod	_	_
4	makes	make	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	appearance	appearance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	8	mark	_	_
8	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
10	worn	worn	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	out	out	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
13	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
14	fail	fail	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | present | Something | valley's appearance |  |  |  | always *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.material V NP»: agent=Material appearance=Product |
| 2 | **fail** | present | worn things |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «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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