---
title: In times past they used to call it ugly, but that is no longer true. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: In times past they used to call it ugly, but that is no longer true. Who acts: steamships, that. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Tuk, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Little Tuk, sentence 35

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In times past they used to call it ugly, but that is no longer true.

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**Who acts:** steamships, that · **What happens:** use, call, be · **To what, where:** sun · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, Little Tuk. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (steamships, that), 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:pg27200:80:35
# text = In times past they used to call it ugly, but that is no longer true.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
3	past	past	ADP	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	call	call	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	_
9	ugly	ugly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	nsubj	_	_
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
14	no	no	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	longer	long	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	16	advmod	_	_
16	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** | past | steamships *= steamship* |  |  |  | time |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **call** | to-infinitive | steamships *= steamship* *not said here* | sun |  |  |  | ugly *property* | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Recipient |
| 3 | **is** | present | that |  |  |  |  | long, true *property* | 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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