---
title: The little boy said not a word; he was half pleased and half afraid. — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: The little boy said not a word; he was half pleased and half afraid. Who acts: little boy, boy. 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 20

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The little boy said not a word; he was half pleased and half afraid.

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**Who acts:** little boy, boy · **What happens:** not say, be · **To what, where:** word · **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 (little boy, boy), 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:pg27200:89:20
# text = The little boy said not a word; he was half pleased and half afraid.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
11	half	half	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	12	advmod	_	_
12	pleased	pleased	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	ccomp	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	half	half	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	15	advmod	_	_
15	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* | past | the little boy | a word |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent word=Topic |
| 2 | **is** | past | boy |  |  |  |  | half, pleased *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | boy *not said here* |  |  |  |  | half *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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