---
title: It is a good thing for my old grandmother that she was already dead,… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It is a good thing for my old grandmother that she was already dead, or he would have taken her life." Who acts: door, grandmother, Claus. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Claus and Big Claus, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Little Claus and Big Claus, sentence 120

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It is a good thing for my old grandmother that she was already dead, or he would have taken her life."

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**Who acts:** door, grandmother, Claus · **What happens:** be, take · **To what, where:** good thing, old grandmother, life

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Claus and Big Claus. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (door, grandmother, Claus), 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:pg27200:71:120
# text = It is a good thing for my old grandmother that she was already dead, or he would have taken her life."
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
8	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	grandmother	grandmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	already	already	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
18	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	aux	_	_
20	taken	take	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	14	conj	_	_
21	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	"	"	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** | present | door | a good thing |  |  |  | for my old grandmother | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | grandmother | my old grandmother *not said here* |  |  |  | dead *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **take** | would · perfect | Claus | grandmother's life |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=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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