---
title: By-and-by an old woman came into the field, and, with a blunt knife… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: By-and-by an old woman came into the field, and, with a blunt knife without a handle, began to dig round the roots of some of the dandelion-plants, and pull them up. Who acts: blunt knife. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Conceited Apple-branch, with its 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Conceited Apple-branch, sentence 41

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
By-and-by an old woman came into the field, and, with a blunt knife without a handle, began to dig round the roots of some of the dandelion-plants, and pull them up.

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**Who acts:** blunt knife · **What happens:** come, begin, dig, pull up · **To what, where:** field, children

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Conceited Apple-branch. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (blunt knife), 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:pg27200:6:41
# text = By-and-by an old woman came into the field, and, with a blunt knife without a handle, began to dig round the roots of some of the dandelion-plants, and pull them up.
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
9	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	into	into	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	field	field	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	blunt	blunt	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
20	without	without	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	handle	handle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
24	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
25	to	to	PART	TO	_	26	mark	_	_
26	dig	dig	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	xcomp	_	_
27	round	round	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	roots	root	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obl	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	29	nmod	_	_
32	of	of	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
34	dandelion	dandelion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	34	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	plants	plant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	39	punct	_	_
38	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	39	cc	_	_
39	pull	pull	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	conj	_	_
40	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	39	obj	_	_
41	up	up	ADP	RP	_	39	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past |  |  |  | the field |  | by a old woman | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme into field=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **begin** | past | a blunt knife without a handle |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **dig** | to-infinitive | a blunt knife without a handle *not said here* |  |  |  |  | round the roots of some | vn create-26.4-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **pull up** | infinitive | a blunt knife without a handle *not said here* | children *= child* |  |  |  |  | vn push-12-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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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