---
title: She was scarcely half as long as a thumb, and they gave her the name… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: She was scarcely half as long as a thumb, and they gave her the name of "Thumbelina," or Tiny, because she was so small. Who acts: flower, stamens. 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 ever
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Little Tiny or Thumbelina, sentence 9

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She was scarcely half as long as a thumb, and they gave her the name of "Thumbelina," or Tiny, because she was so small.

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**Who acts:** flower, stamens · **What happens:** be, give, name · **To what, where:** name, flower, Thumbelina

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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 (flower, stamens), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg27200:5691`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg27200:79:9
# text = She was scarcely half as long as a thumb, and they gave her the name of "Thumbelina," or Tiny, because she was so small.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
4	half	half	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	as	as	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	as	as	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	thumb	thumb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
14	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	iobj	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	_
19	Thumbelina	Thumbelina	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
21	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
22	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	Tiny	Tiny	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	conj	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
25	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	29	mark	_	_
26	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
27	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	cop	_	_
28	so	so	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
29	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	advcl	_	_
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | flower |  |  |  |  | as a thumb; half, long, scarcely *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **give** | past | stamens *= stamen* | the name of Thumbelina or Tiny | flower |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent she=Recipient name=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | flower |  |  |  |  | small *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **name** |  |  | Thumbelina or Tiny |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: of=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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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