---
title: It was a long journey at that time, for the railway had not been ope… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a long journey at that time, for the railway had not been opened. Who acts: business, long journey. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IV. Babette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, IV. Babette, sentence 36

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It was a long journey at that time, for the railway had not been opened.

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**Who acts:** business, long journey · **What happens:** be, not open · **To what, where:** long journey, railway

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, IV. Babette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (business, long journey), 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:pg27200:55:36
# text = It was a long journey at that time, for the railway had not been opened.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	journey	journey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	det	_	_
8	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
10	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	railway	railway	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
14	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
15	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	opened	open	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | business | a long journey |  |  | time |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **open** | past · perfect · passive | a long journey *not said here* | the railway |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme |

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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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