---
title: It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but the… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use. Who acts: It, girl, slippers. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Match-seller, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Match-seller, sentence 3

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It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use.

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**Who acts:** It, girl, slippers · **What happens:** be, have, leave, not be · **To what, where:** pair

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Match-seller. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It, girl, slippers), 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:pg27200:74:3
# text = It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	pair	pair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	slippers	slipper	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	_
11	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	left	leave	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
14	home	home	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
18	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
19	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | It |  |  |  |  | true *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | girl |  |  | a pair of slippers |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **leave** | past | girl |  |  |  |  | home *property* | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **is** | past | slippers *= slipper* |  |  |  |  | of much use | tree rules |

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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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