---
title: Hold fast," said the animal; "hold fast, for I am going up stairs." — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: Hold fast," said the animal; "hold fast, for I am going up stairs." Who acts: you, animal, I. A sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Metal Pig, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, The Metal Pig, sentence 19

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Hold fast," said the animal; "hold fast, for I am going up stairs."

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**Who acts:** you, animal, I · **What happens:** hold, say, go up · **To what, where:** stairs · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen» by H. C. Andersen, The Metal Pig. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, animal, I), 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:pg27200:89:19
# text = Hold fast," said the animal; "hold fast, for I am going up stairs."
1	Hold	hold	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	1	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	hold	hold	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
11	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
17	up	up	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	stairs	stair	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | the animal |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **hold** | infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **go up** | present · progressive | I | stairs |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.patient V NP.extent PP.source PP.goal»: agent=Patient stair=Extent |

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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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