---
title: A large marble pillar lay on the ground, which, in falling, had been… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: A large marble pillar lay on the ground, which, in falling, had been broken into three pieces. Who acts: large marble pillar, ground. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Tiny or Thumbelina, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Little Tiny or Thumbelina, sentence 168

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A large marble pillar lay on the ground, which, in falling, had been broken into three pieces.

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**Who acts:** large marble pillar, ground · **What happens:** lie, fall, break · **To what, where:** ground, three pieces

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Tiny or Thumbelina. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (large marble pillar, ground), 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:pg27200:79:168
# text = A large marble pillar lay on the ground, which, in falling, had been broken into three pieces.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	marble	marble	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	pillar	pillar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	falling	fall	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	broken	break	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	_
18	into	into	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	20	nummod	_	_
20	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past | a large marble pillar |  |  | the ground |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on ground=Location |
| 2 | **fall** | gerund | the ground |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **break** | past · perfect · passive | a large marble pillar *not said here* |  |  |  |  | into three pieces *result* | vn break-45.1 «NP V PP.result»: into piece=Result |

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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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