---
title: Her tender feet felt as if cut with sharp knives, but she cared not… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Her tender feet felt as if cut with sharp knives, but she cared not for it; a sharper pang had pierced through her heart. Who acts: tender feet, present. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics 
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 4, sentence 16

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Her tender feet felt as if cut with sharp knives, but she cared not for it; a sharper pang had pierced through her heart.

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**Who acts:** tender feet, present · **What happens:** feel, cut, not care, pierce · **To what, where:** sharper pang

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Little Mermaid, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tender feet, present), 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:pg27200:78:16
# text = Her tender feet felt as if cut with sharp knives, but she cared not for it; a sharper pang had pierced through her heart.
1	Her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
2	tender	tender	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
7	cut	cut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	xcomp	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	knives	knife	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	cared	care	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	sharper	sharp	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	21	amod	_	_
21	pang	pang	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj:pass	_	_
22	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	pierced	pierce	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
24	through	through	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **feel** | past | present's tender feet |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **cut** *a condition, not said to happen* | participle | present's tender feet *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with sharp knives | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V PP PP»: agent=Agent with knife=Instrument |
| 3 | **not** **care** | past | present |  |  |  |  | for swallow | vn caring-75.2-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent for it=Theme |
| 4 | **pierce** | past · perfect · passive |  | a sharper pang |  |  |  | through present's heart | vn poke-19-1 «NP V NP PP.patient»: subject=Instrument through heart=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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