---
title: The cat standing on the steps put up its back and cried "mew." — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The cat standing on the steps put up its back and cried "mew." Who acts: cat. 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 65

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The cat standing on the steps put up its back and cried "mew."

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**Who acts:** cat · **What happens:** stand, put up, cry · **To what, where:** back, mew

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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 (cat), 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:pg27200:55:65
# text = The cat standing on the steps put up its back and cried "mew."
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
3	standing	stand	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	acl	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
7	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	up	up	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	_
9	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
13	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	mew	mew	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | gerund | the cat *not said here* |  |  |  |  | on the steps | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on step=Location |
| 2 | **put up** | past | the cat | cat's back |  |  |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent back=Goal |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | the cat *not said here* | mew |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mew=Topic |

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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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