---
title: They trod on my tail twice, but I did not mew; that would have attra… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: They trod on my tail twice, but I did not mew; that would have attracted notice." Who acts: table, I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, VI. the Visit to the Mill, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, VI. the Visit to the Mill, sentence 30

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They trod on my tail twice, but I did not mew; that would have attracted notice."

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**Who acts:** table, I · **What happens:** tread, not mew, attract · **To what, where:** tail, attracted notice, that

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, VI. the Visit to the Mill. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (table, I), 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:pg27200:57:30
# text = They trod on my tail twice, but I did not mew; that would have attracted notice."
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	trod	tread	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	twice	twice	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	mew	mew	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
14	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	17	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux	_	_
17	attracted	attract	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	amod	_	_
18	notice	notice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tread** | past | table |  |  | my tail |  | twice *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on tail=Trajectory |
| 2 | **not** **mew** | past · do-support | I | attracted notice |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent notice=Theme |
| 3 | **attract** | would · perfect · passive |  | that |  |  |  |  | vn lure-59.3 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |

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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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