---
title: After hearing his answers, the old man took him home to a small hous… — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen · tree and pragmatics
description: After hearing his answers, the old man took him home to a small house close by, in a back street. Who acts: old man, 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 87

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After hearing his answers, the old man took him home to a small house close by, in a back street.

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**Who acts:** old man, boy · **What happens:** hear, take, answer · **To what, where:** answers, boy, back street

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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 (old man, 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:pg27200:89:87
# text = After hearing his answers, the old man took him home to a small house close by, in a back street.
1	After	after	SCONJ	IN	_	2	mark	_	_
2	hearing	hear	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	answers	answer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	home	home	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
16	close	close	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
17	by	by	ADP	IN	_	16	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	street	street	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | gerund | the old man *not said here* | boy's answers |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer answer=Stimulus |
| 2 | **take** | past | the old man | boy |  | a back street |  | to a small house; home *property* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent he=Theme to house=Destination |
| 3 | **answer** |  | boy |  |  |  |  |  | nom answer «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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